There’s a major difference between big government and competent government.
Consider the details now emerging about the Pacific Palisades Fire in California. Driven by high winds, that devastating inferno roared through Southern California in January 2025, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of homes and other buildings. Surviving homeowners soon realized that California’s regulatory labyrinth is almost as destructive as the wildfire.
It’s obvious now that this blaze did much more damage than it had to. Some of the problems were known shortly afterward. For instance, the Los Angeles Fire Department had only had a handful of extra engines on standby despite concerns about extreme weather. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass blasted former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley for sending many firefighters home before the fire exploded.
But time and investigations have revealed other blunders. Days before the deadly blaze, firefighters went to the Lachman Fire. Scott Pike, a 23-year veteran of the LAFD, said the area was still a smoldering when he was ordered to leave. “I saw light smoke on the ground,” he testified in February as part of a lawsuit against Los Angeles and California. “I saw branches that were smoking still. I could smell smoke.”
Some areas were too hot to touch.
“I could feel the heat coming off of it, and I didn’t even want to use my gloved hand because it was hot,” he said. “So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it and there was like red hot, like, coals, what I believe to be the base of a bush or branches that was still smoldering, and I even heard crackling.”
He wanted to stay because he believed the remains of the Lachman Fire could lead to a bigger blaze. His superiors ordered him to leave. Days later, embers from the Lachman Fire sparked the Palisades Fire.
Mr. Pike wasn’t interviewed for the city’s report. The Los Angeles Times reported that Ms. Bass “directed watering down of Palisades Fire after-action report, sources say.”
There’s more. “The firefighters also testified that CA State Parks told them that park employees would patrol the burn scar for several days after the firefighters left,” Trey Robertson, an attorney for fire victims, wrote on X. “We allege that the LAFD and Mayor Karen Bass have engaged in a massive cover-up to conceal and suppress the truth about the Palisades Fire.”
Further, state parks employees may have pushed firefighters to restrict their efforts over concerns about an endangered plant. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office claims the state didn’t have any responsibility for monitoring the fire.
California politicians aren’t good at using controlled burns to prevent larger infernos or repairing reservoirs. But they’re experts at passing the buck when it comes to taking responsibility for their own actions and policies.
