California Democrats Continue to Fail Residents Following Devastating Wildfires

Months after devastating wildfires ripped through southern California, residents are still looking for answers and accountability as state Democrats struggle with cleanup efforts and the weight of a self-imposed tangle of bureaucratic red tape.

The blazes that ripped through the Golden State earlier this year were some of the most devastating wildfires in U.S. history. The Palisades and Eaton fires ravaged Los Angeles County, consuming over 55,000 acres and destroying more than 16,000 structures. The death toll from these fires has risen to 30, with 18 fatalities attributed to the Eaton fire and 12 to the Palisades fire. Economic losses are estimated between $95 billion and $164 billion, potentially making these wildfires the second-costliest natural disaster in U.S. history behind only Hurricane Katrina.

Once firefighters gained control of the flames, all attention turned to rebuilding and addressing glaring leadership failures that some residents alleged resulted in the fires being far more destructive than they otherwise would have been. Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump met with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (who was notably not even in the country when the fires broke out) and other Democrat officials, blasting them for failing to adequately prepare for the disaster despite repeated warnings about dangerous windy and dry conditions.

Trump also pressured local officials to speed up the permitting process. California and Los Angeles in particular are notorious for extensive delays to obtain building permits, forcing builders to jump through dozens of expensive, time-consuming bureaucratic hoops just to construct one single-family home. At the time, Bass, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and other leaders promised they would speed up permitting, even waiving some environmental regulations to begin rebuilding utilities.

But as the media has moved on, apparently so has California Democrats’ commitment to helping residents. According to a report out late last month, “The city of Los Angeles has issued just four rebuilding permits in the Pacific Palisades 75 days after a fire devastated most of the coastal community.” That’s an astonishingly low number given the scale of the destruction.

As the report also noted, the city “dedicated significant resources to tearing down a 20-year-old family treehouse [last month] over permitting disagreements,” yet apparently isn’t interested in helping property owners rebuild their homes.

Builder Alexis Rivas, who documented his permitting experience on X, revealed that even with the “expedited process” it still took him 58 days to obtain a permit – and he couldn’t start building until the Army Corps of Engineers cleared his lot. Worse, Bass “has said that homeowners who fail to clean up lots will have the burned-up remains of their homes declared a ‘nuisance.’”

In short, city leaders have failed to give residents permission to clear their lots to rebuild, yet are threatening to declare burned homes a “nuisance” and potentially levy fines and penalties against property owners.

Even if residents can get permits to rebuild, California Democrats are doing nothing to address what fire officials believe was the root cause of at least some of the blazes – the state’s homelessness crisis.

While liberals nationwide have been quick to blame “climate change” for the California wildfires, Real Clear Investigations recently detailed a report from local news station KCAL News using LAFD data which “found that since 2019, the number of fires connected to a homeless person has increased by the thousands. In 2024 alone, there were nearly 17,000 such fires.” Another investigation from NBC4’s I-Team “tallied nearly 14,000 homeless fires a year earlier.”

In other words, there is significant evidence that California’s homeless population, which now stands at more than 185,000, is starting tens of thousands of fires per year, and the government is doing nothing about it.

According to KCAL and NBC4’s investigations, “fire officials have been advised to evade questions about homeless fires from local journalists.” It seems California Democrats find it far more convenient to blame global warming than the consequences of their own policies for the state’s mounting fire problem.

As local reporter Gigi Graciette told Real Clear, “many chiefs, many battalion chiefs, many captains are extremely frustrated to see their men and their women risking their lives on fires” at the same homeless encampments over and over. In one case, firefighters were repeatedly called to an abandoned office building that had been taken over by squatters. “It was there that a battalion chief told me ‘we’ve been to this one building ten times and I’m not allowed to speak about it,’” Graciette said. “That’s just the politics at play here.”

Bass notably slashed more than $17 million from the city’s fire department budget just months before the fires began – a small fraction of the $49 million that Bass reportedly initially wanted to cut. As Real Clear reports, “While $837 million was budgeted for the fire department in fiscal year 2023-2024, $1.3 billion was allocated for the homeless.”

Despite utterly failing Californians, Mayor Bass is asking for a $1.9 billion bailout from the state – along with $2.5 billion in fire aid already approved. Governor Newsom is also asking Congress for an additional $40 billion.

It increasingly seems as if the best thing Californians could do to help their state recover from this year’s wildfires – and prevent more deadly blazes in the future – is elect new leaders who will finally put California residents above progressive left-wing ideology.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.