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PLANNING WATCH - There is nothing new about LA’s wildfires, except that climate change is making them worse. Anyone who wants can watch an excellent documentary produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) in 1962, Design for Disaster. It spells out the causes and consequences of that year’s Bel Air fire, proof that some people at LA’s City Hall understood the dynamics of the LA area’s recurring wildfires 60 years ago. My conclusion is that Mayor Karen Bass’s critics, most of whom are good ol’ boys and girls tempted by quick real estate profits, are using this year’s wildfires as their cover for criticizing the Mayor.
Evidence? The Mayor’s detractors systematically overlook her genuine offenses. Like her predecessors and her critics, she is in the pocket of construction companies and real estate speculators, two groups that have enormously profited from building in fire-prone areas, like the Pacific Palisades. Since Mayor Bass’s critics agree with her commitment to rapid rebuilding in these posh areas, they fault her for minor offenses, such as a diplomatic trip to Ghana or disputes with LA’s Fire Department.
What is really going on? First, LA’s recent wildfires cannot be stopped by the LAFD, even with the help of other fire departments. The combination of hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and eight rainless months sealed the fate of both Mayor Bass and the fire chief she sacked. They can hold press conferences in front of burned-out buildings and shift blame to other officials, but this hides the obvious: no fire departments, including the LAFD, can stop the highly destructive Santa Ana fires.
This was the point of Mike Davis’s famous 1996 essay, Let Malibu Burn, and this truth-teller’s insights have withstood the test of time. Thirty years ago he understood that firefighters could not successfully battle Southern California’s seasonal wildfires, especially when expensive houses are built in high fire hazard severity zones, as shown above. Davis wrote:
"Total fire suppression" — the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919 — is a futile, indeed disastrous, strategy that makes doomsday like firestorms and subsequent floods virtually inevitable by preventing the recycling of dead chaparral by more frequent small fires.
This practice has been methodically ignored by our public officials and the mainstream media, as demonstrated by the recent complaints levelled against Mayor Bass by cronies and hangers-on who never absorbed the documented lessons of LA’s1962 Bel Air fire.
Does this mean that Mayor Bass is blameless? No. Her fire-related offenses are serious, just not the ones levelled by her critics. The Mayor’s January 13, 2025, Emergency Executive Order #1, is entirely focused on the rapid reconstruction of homes and businesses destroyed or severely damaged by the Palisades fire. The Mayor’s Executive Order #1 is really a gift to property owners and contractors since its facilitates rapid re-building in high fire hazard severity zones. This is the antithesis of good planning because the Mayor’s order clears the way for Los Angeles residents to rapidly rebuild the homes they lost by:
· Granting local waivers for CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) review.
· Waiving local discretionary review processes.
Totally missing is planning efforts to direct rebuilding into safer parts of Los Angeles, away from neighborhoods that will burn again, made worse by climate change.
Have any lessons been truly learned from one of the costliest natural disasters in US history? Will the wealthiest country in the world allocate funds to buy out destroyed properties and create more open space and parks?
Based on Mayor Bass’s Executive Order #1, the answer to these questions is NO.
(Dick Platkin ([email protected]) is a retired LA city planner, who reports on local planning issues. He is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA). Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives.)
