Los Angeles firestorms, literal and political.

January 13, 2025

Watching a natural disaster unfold is a sobering and perspective-altering experience—all the more so as our president-elect, the GOP, and much of the media see the disaster as an opportunity to “own the libs” in California. In today’s newsletter, I reflect on several aspects of the firestorms in California that affect the national economy and political dynamic. I hope this is helpful in encouraging a productive dialog about how to respond to the firestorms in Los Angeles.

The political firestorm.

The firestorms that leveled three areas in Los Angeles will have national reverberations and, therefore, demand a national response. The failure of the incoming administration and members of Congress to comprehend that fact will compound the injury to the US economy. The effort of Trump and his loyalists to spread disinformation while dancing on the graves of victims and communities is reprehensible and counterproductive to the national interests.

It is difficult to comprehend the combined vastness of Los Angeles and California—and their importance to the US economy.

California is the world’s fifth largest economy as measured by nominal GDP ($3.9 trillion), trailing only Japan, Germany, China, and the US.

California contributes nearly 15% of the US GDP.

Los Angeles County, in turn, accounts for more than 25% of California’s economy, meaning that LA County contributes nearly 4% of the US GDP.

The economy of LA County ($790 billion) is greater than the GDP of 39 of the states in the US. For a sense of scale, the economy of LA County is greater than the combined economies of Alaska, Maine, Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming ($710 billion).

I note these statistics not to boast (as a proud Angeleno), but to highlight the fact that it would be madness for the federal government to refuse federal aid to help Los Angeles recover quickly. LA has lost more than 20,000 homes and businesses. Its infrastructure has suffered significant damage; over 200,000 residents are without power due to the destruction of high transmission power lines. Water quality in reservoirs has been degraded from smoke particulates, meaning that hundreds of thousands of residents whose homes survived the fires will not have potable water service. Hundreds of thousands more remained locked out of their homes due to evacuation orders.

When other parts of the nation experience natural disasters, aid is quickly delivered. Criticisms of aid tend to focus on the slowness of FEMA’s response. In the case of LA’s natural disaster, a Republican member of Congress from Ohio—Warren Davidson—has called for delaying aid to California until the state “improves its forestry practices.” See HuffPo, House Republican Threatens To Withhold Disaster Aid From California Amid Deadly Wildfires.

The notion that California has deficient forestry practices emerges from a 2020 statement by Trump that California was failing to “rake and clean” its forest floors like Finland. See Politico, (8/21/2020), Trump blames California for wildfires, tells state 'you gotta clean your floors'.

More about the “forestry practices” lie in a moment. The point is that no Democrats called for delaying aid after hurricanes until affected states revised their building codes regarding construction in coastal zones subject to repeated flooding during hurricanes.

To add insult to injury, California is ranked 49^th in terms of “dependency on federal funds”—meaning its receives less “return” on its contribution to federal revenues than every other state (only New Jersey ranks lower). See Most & Least Federally Dependent States in 2025.

Rep. Davidson of Ohio should reflect for a moment on where federal revenue comes from. California contributes six times more in federal revenue than does Ohio. For every $5.00 California contributes to federal revenue, it receives $1.00 in federal funding.

Here’s my point: California is not a charity case. It pulls its weight in a nation where states have united for the common good. So please, MAGA, spare us the moralizing. I doubt appeals to your sense of fairness will be unavailing, so consider this: If the federal government refuses to assist LA County with a quick recovery, there could be a measurable, negative impact on GDP—and, possibly, inflation. How would that look for Trump?

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The disinformation firestorm

The flames were still rolling through the Santa Monica Mountains when Trump began his disinformation campaign. Sadly, disinformation and conspiracy theories have become staples of the MAGA response to mass casualty events. After mass shootings, MAGA rushes to fill social media with false claims that the shooter was a Democrat, Muslim, transgender, gay, or an undocumented immigrant. After the floods and winds following recent hurricanes that caused devastating flooding in North Carolina, MAGA went into overdrive to interfere with FEMA’s efforts to provide emergency cash to victims.

The speed with which MAGA “floods the zone” with disinformation is becoming a significant impediment to disaster response by state and federal agencies. Disinformation not only sows confusion, it corrodes trust between victims and rescuers. It causes victims to delay in seeking assistance or claiming benefits that will speed recovery.

The fact that MAGA politicians are already talking about “delaying” aid until California revises its “forestry practices” is a case in point. I doubt that Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio would recognized a forestry practice if it hit in the ****. His statements betray ignorance about the state of California, forestry, and “practices” in general.

The state of California has 33 million acres of forests. California Forest Statistics. The federal government owns 57% of forest land, private industry owns 40%, leaving only 3% of forest lands under the control of state and local agencies. Thus, to the extent that “forest practices” are an issue in California wildfires, those practices are controlled by the federal government and private industry.

Still, both the federal and state governments use prescribed fire to control risk of wildfire in California. See Cal Fire, Prescribed Fire, a statewide program designed to reduce fuels and reduce the risk of wildfire. The Cal Fire program permits private owners to use prescribed burns to manage forests under their control in California. See CAL FIRE Prescribed Fire Guidebook.pdf.

Ohio also permits prescribed fires, but the documentation on its website is not as robust as that provided by Cal Fire, above. Perhaps Rep. Davidson of Ohio should suggest to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that it review California’s “forestry practices” manual to see whether there is anything Ohio can learn from its fellow state.

Moreover, the areas that were ravaged by the wildfire are under the jurisdiction of fire officials at the county and city level, not the “State of California.”

Trump and the MAGA media claim that the wildfires were more destructive because the City of Los Angeles allegedly decreased the fire department’s budget. That claim evinces a shocking level of ignorance about how wildfires propagate in California. On the night that the largest fires occurred, winds gusts hovered between 50 and 80 mph and humidity dipped to 8%!

With hurricane-force wind gusts, single-digit humidity, and dry brush due to an anemic 0.08 inches of rain over the prior six months, Pacific Palisades and other areas in LA were a tinderbox. The City of Los Angeles could have doubled its $800 million budget for the LA Fire Department and the outcome would not have changed.

Pacific Palisades was like a blast furnace. Hundreds of houses were on fire simultaneously. Many were reduced to fine ash in 30 minutes. As firefighters were in one location, the winds were spreading embers miles away, starting new house fires. By the time firefighters arrived at the new location, the fire had once again leap-frogged two miles away. The fire was unstoppable.

The lie that Los Angeles “ran out of water” has taken hold. Los Angeles did not run out of water. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power explains the facts on its website. The Pacific Palisades are in the Santa Monica Mountains. To create water pressure for hydrants (and homes) located at higher elevations in the Palisades, LADWP maintains 3 one-million gallon tanks.

Over 15 hours, firefighters drew down those tanks faster than they could be re-filled due to the unprecedented demand. Only 20% of hydrants (at the highest elevations) were affected and pressurized water remained in the trunk lines continuously. See LADWP, Pacific Palisades Fire: Correcting Misinformation About LADWP’s Water System.

When some of the hydrants lost pressure at the higher elevations, LADWP ferried in water in 19 water trucks with 4,000-gallon capacities—a standard fire-fighting technique used across the United States when hydrants are unavailable.

But the “LA ran out of water” falsehood is beside the point. Houses burned to the ground in areas with fully pressurized hydrants. The issue wasn’t the hydrants; it was hurricane force wind, the single-digit humidity, and the lack of rain over the preceding six months which made saving homes nearly impossible.

The fact that one of the LADWP’s reservoirs was drained due to failure to meet California drinking water standards is also irrelevant. The main trunk lines remained pressurized because LADWP has 114 reservoirs and tanks that maintain pressure in the main lines. Having one reservoir offline did not affect the pressure. See, again, LADWP, Pacific Palisades Fire: Correcting Misinformation About LADWP’s Water System.

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Concluding Thoughts

Well, this isn’t the newsletter I had intended to write when I picked up my laptop several hours ago. But as a native Angeleno, I feel personally offended by politicians and media who know nothing about wildfires but who nonetheless attack Los Angeles during an ongoing natural disaster. No other state or city in the US has been subjected to such criticism and disinformation directed at the victims and their elected representatives during a natural disaster. (Hurricane Katrina strikes me as a justified exception.)

As I hope I have demonstrated, California and LA County are vital parts of the national economic engine. Threatening to hobble the LA region by withholding relief funds that are disproportionately contributed to the federal government by California and LA makes the moralizing and finger-wagging by clueless politicians and media personalities unbearable.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I will be back to my regular programming tomorrow evening, depending on how things go in the next 24 hours. But we cannot forget the tens of thousands of Angelenos who have lost their homes and loved ones.

My wife’s video blog includes pictures and videos of our weekend outing to the local grocery store. See Every Day with Jill, Weekend Encino Fire Update

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

The desert winds kicked up again on Sunday evening, sweeping over Los Angeles from the Northeast. As a result, the skies over the San Fernando Valley are crystal clear. The image below was captured on Sunday evening with the full moon high overhead.

Messier 81 and 82 are galaxies located 12 million light-years from Earth. They are separated from one another by 150,000 light-years.

When the photons from those galaxies started their journey to reach Earth on January 12, 2025, humans and chimpanzees had not yet split into separate evolutionary groups. Something to ponder as we look up at the night sky.