California, Beyond the Governor’s Narrative |
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State concluded that 2025 was “challenging . . . yet one of our finest years.” But for many Californians, 2025 was their worst year imaginable.
Challenging Aftermath to the Southern California Fires
The year began with the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Fires, which killed 31 people, destroyed or damaged more than 16,000 structures, affected more than 70,000 individuals, and created perhaps as much as $131 billion in total economic damages. Yet these financial damages can’t begin to address how so many lives have been changed, and how Pacific Palisades and Altadena will never be the same.
Both fires could easily have been prevented. The Palisades fire has been determined to be a reignition of an arsonist’s fire (the Lachmann Fire) that was never extinguished. Infrared technology—often used to check burn areas for hot spots that could lead to reignitions—was not used in this case and in fact wasn’t even needed to determine that the original fire hadn’t been extinguished. A hiker’s video shows that the burn area was still smoldering, and Los Angeles firefighters’ texts allegedly show that firefighters at the Lachmann Fire site observed hot spots and requested to remain at the scene. However, according to those text messages, they were ordered to leave.
Palisades residents have filed lawsuits focusing on the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) and the State of California’s potential negligence in failing to extinguish the Lachmann Fire. A Los Angeles Times article suggests the possibility that the LAFD’s efforts to extinguish the that fire may have been impeded by the State’s Parks Department’s effort to protect endangered plants. Those plants, of course, are now gone.
The City of Los Angeles has not been the most forthcoming in providing information about the fire. A trial judge ordered production of documents and depositions of firefighters and state officials, but attorneys for the City have recently moved to block the release of firefighter depositions that could provide an accounting of the LAFD’s decisions before the Palisades Fire.
Moreover, the LAFD’s after-action report was “watered down” to exclude damaging information. The author of the report’s original draft refused to endorse it, given how much it was changed. The LAFD will not say who wrote the final draft. The recently appointed fire chief states........