How did the LA wildfires turn into an insatiable monster?

What went wrong with the management of the Los Angeles’ wildfires, which have killed 27 and reduced entire neighborhoods to war zones?

Is there any truth in the political attacks from the Republicans that the water shortages and widespread destruction are proof of “gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/News c u m Duo!” as President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social?

After all, even the supporters of LA’s mayor Karen Bass have raised questions about her ability to manage a catastrophe on this scale, according to The New York Times.

California state governor Gavin Newsom – referred to disparagingly by Trump as “News c u m” – has admitted that there were things that went wrong.

He has called for an independent investigation into the local water supply, for instance, after some fire hydrants ran dry on the second day of the fires, especially in the exclusive Pacific Palisades neighborhood, Reuters reports.

The authorities have said that all the tanks available in the city were full before the wildfires took hold, including the Palisades fire.

However, they also added that local water systems were not designed to put out wildfires which use inordinate amounts of water. “Was it just overwhelm?” Newsom wonders in an interview with NBC News.

The New York Times offers a different explanation for the prolonged battle to get the fires under control.

According to the paper, there is a lack of centralized control in Los Angeles, unlike in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

With a population of 9.6 million, Los Angeles county is run by a board of five people, each of whose authority rivals that of Bass, the LA mayor.

Spread across the county’s 4,751 square miles, are 45 police departments as well as the LA police department on top of dozens of different fire departments. Coordination, in these circumstances, is challenging.

For instance, the Eaton fire is being dealt with by a county fire department while the Palisades fire is in the hands of the LA Fire Department.

Former California governor Gray Davis told The New York Times, “There’s a time when you need clear accountability, someone who will give orders and accept responsibility whether things work or not.”

“The public here seems not to want that on a day-to-day basis. But when there is an emergency, we need that. And we don’t have that system,” he added.

California’s system of diverse governance was implemented to avoid power being concentrated in the hands of one mayor, but in certain situations too many cooks can spoil the broth.

Director of the Haynes Foundation, Raphael J. Sonenshein, told The Times, “Here, it’s a little more of an art to exercise mayoral leadership.”

“The mayor might have strong opinions, but to get problems solved, you have to figure out how to get these governance agencies to work together. It’s very hard to get things done.”

Meanwhile, it looks as though Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk will continue to make the most of the catastrophe in a bid to undermine the Democrats and push their anti-woke and deregulation agenda.

Berkeley political scientist Henry Brady told Reuters that the wildfires provided the Republicans with an irresistible store of ammunition.

“Watch Fox News,” he said. “California is the boogeyman. California has cities out of control. California is doing all these crazy things with climate change. We are the people who have sanctuary cities and the place where people are woke beyond belief."

“Punishing California is something that is, from their perspective, a positive good,” he added.

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