Q: (name withheld)

Given your quals why have you not commented on the California fires? Seems like you should have. I know for a fact that you never lost a home when you were on a national incident management team for over 5 years.

 

A: Well, so many folks are talking about it, there isn’t much more to say. Yeah, people need to sift and sort through the BS and the ignorance of what is being said. And of course balance what is being said against facts…without the emotions. Let me share a couple things with you…

First the “pros”:

• The air resources are doing an amazing job! I love that they can work at night, something the Feds refuse to do. These guys can really do a lot of things that the folks on the ground can’t…and it shows.
• Most of the boots on the ground are trying hard under terrible weather, fuel, and leadership conditions.
• California prison inmate wildland firefighter crews are some of the best in the country. They are incredible folks, very dedicated, and extremely effective/productive. I place them on par with any Type 2 crew and as good as many Hot Shot crews. They are doing a great job!

The “cons”:

• The California leadership is directly to blame for the this mess. Well, maybe 75% of the blame.
  • They destroyed water catchments to save dumbass 2” fish.
  • They destroyed dams so native tribes could fish for dinner.
  • They didn’t refill water reservoirs, proven by actual pictures of dry reservoirs.
  • They didn’t pre-order and stage firefighting resources prior to the event.
  • Their wildland firefighting training sucks! They waste(d) huge amounts of water, equipment, and manpower fighting fire that has no bearing (outcome) at all.
  • Before the fires began, but when they knew the weather was coming and knew they didn’t have sufficient water resources, they could have ordered literally hundreds of water trucks to roll with fire trucks providing much needed water supply.
  • Leaders cut the fire department budget significantly. Oh, and the fire department leadership just let it slide without a fight.
• Homeowners share about 25% of the blame.
  • People built and bought homes in areas known for devastating wildfires.
  • They also neglected to take well-known measure to protect their properties.
  • They also repeatedly voted in city, county, and state politicians that were more interested in pampering illegal aliens than doing their job to protect and safeguard citizens.

The insurance companies were the only smart ones out of all of this mess. They saw what the problems were, how catastrophic it could be…and they tried to up policy rates that could protect the homeowners. But the radical leftist state government said no to rate increases. So the insurance companies canceled policies or pulled out of the state entirely. Very, very smart!!!! Why would they want to conduct business when they knew they would lose money? Lose BILLIONS of dollars!

On the other hand the state, country, and city leadership absolutely suck!!! The sheer amount of incompetence is staggering, almost unbelievable. ALL of that leadership ignored their basic job…to protect their citizens. Then again, maybe it isn’t incompetence at all. Maybe something far more sinister?

And let’s not leave out the feds. Look at the amount of federal land involved. The US Forest Service it unreal in their complete and total failure to manage forests. And that is a fact that has been known for decades. The USFS simply think they know what is best and ignore both nature and science when it comes to their forest management…and the results are catastrophic fires for nearly 100 years.

Then there is CalFire and LAFD…pathetic. It is well-known in the wildland firefighting community that CalFire is both arrogant and incompetent. I know this firsthand. This topic could be a 10,000 word article itself. Their work ethic sucks and their leadership is some of the worst in the country…probably the worst. LAFD turned down an offer by FDNY to help with fire management. Big deal? Yup! Post-9/11 FDNY spent 10’s of millions of dollars on incident training…some of them I helped train. NYFD turned out to be some of the best incident management leaders I’ve seen in fire departments and they know incident management! So LAFD turns down the offer…arrogance at its worst.

Consider this…the catastrophic fires happening now is just the first stage. Next will come the lack of ability of most homeowners to pay their mortgage payments since they have no home to live in and have to find other living arrangements. About 10,000 homes have been destroyed so far…they will all have to find somewhere else to live…and that will cost them huge amounts of rent money. So most won’t be able to pay their mortgages…they will lose their homes to the banks.

Those who do try to pay for both rent and their mortgages will get hit with their property tax bill. And in that county about 65% of the assessed value for tax purposes is based on the land NOT the structure. So many of the homeowners will lose their property to the county.

Those who can survive all of that will then attempt to rebuild will find builders/contractors charging HUGE amounts of money to build due to supply and demand. And it will cost even more based on California building codes that will now affect new construction. How many folks, or rather which folks, will be able to afford that?

And let’s not forget all the infrastructure that will need to be rebuilt…roads, water lines, sewers, bridges, power lines, streets, etc. Who pays for all of that?

And the state’s fire insurance fund (California Wildfire Fund) is woefully underfunded and won’t come close to covering the loses of the current fires. The current estimate of loses in now about $300,000,000,000 ($300 billion), the fund won’t cover a fraction of that. So where does the money come from to cover the loses?

Oh, let’s not forget that their governor cut $100,000,000 from the state’s fire prevention budget. And LA cut about $20,000,000 from the fire department budget. Why do you think this is? And where did all that money go?

Folks, the fires currently burning is just the first stage/phase of the disaster, the unfathomable catastrophe, that is taking place in California…and it is all self-inflicted.

When investigating a crime you ask a number of questions:

• Why did it happen now?
• Who benefits from it?
• Where did/does the money go?

Interesting questions…that no one in leadership will ask or respond to. And certainly none of the radical left-wing media in California will touch those basic questions.

What will be interesting is the outcome of the official After Action Review. Watch how they will word it. The blame, at least the emphasis, will be on weather, fuels, terrain, and lack of funding. No one, not a single person, will ever be held accountable or even the slightest amount of blame placed at anyone’s feet. Well, unless of course someone is the designated ‘fall guy’.

I don’t think most folks understand just how serious this situation really is…and how financially devastating this will be, not just for California…but the entire country.

Personal Note –

The person asking the question knows me personally. I withheld their name. For clarification…I served for over 5 years on an national wildfire incident management team. I worked in the Operations Section as a Division Supervisor and Structure Protection Specialist. And they are correct…I never lost a house while we were in charge of a fire. FWIW…I was also deployed to Australia over 15 years ago for 2 months to help with their historic fire season. In 1998 I was on the fire in Florida that threatened an entire county and destroyed a good part of it. So yeah, a bit of experience to draw my opinions on.

 

 

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