Palisades fire arrest shows Newsom and Bass put politics over public safety

The Department of Justice and the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the Trump administration announced that they had determined the cause of the accident. Pacific Palisades Fire The alleged arsonist was arrested. Earlier, local officials said the cause was unknown, but it may have been caused by fireworks.

As a Palisades resident whose home was damaged but survived the fire, I hope the guilty party goes to prison for a long time. However, there must be no mistake, he was not the one responsible for burning the town of Pacific Palisades to the ground. The brunt of this responsibility falls on California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Newsom failed to properly manage state forests, leaving them dangerously overgrown with trees that fuel the fires. Instead of taking swift action to remove them, Newsom seems to enjoy blaming climate change after each devastating fire. After the Palisades Fire, he said, “Hot temperatures became hotter. Dry areas became drier. Wet areas became wetter. That is climate change.”

Sources say the arrest was made in connection with the deadly Pacific Barrier Fire

Bass showed complete disregard for her duties as mayor. If elected, she said during her campaign, “I will not travel internationally. The only places I will go are D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco and New York as far as Los Angeles is concerned.” However, she left the country five times, including her infamous trip to Ghana while Los Angeles was under a fire weather watch from the National Weather Service (which quickly became a red flag warning the next day) to attend the inauguration of Ghana’s president. She was at a cocktail party when she learned of the fire.

It’s bad enough that she violated a campaign pledge, but doing so at a dangerous time, and in something completely unrelated to her job as mayor, is inexcusable. She’s the mayor of the second-largest city in the United States, but she doesn’t appear to be one We value responsibility That comes with the job. (This was her second inauguration outside the country; she also attended the inauguration of the Mexican president.)

Bass is also to blame because her DEI hiring practices place less qualified people in critical positions responsible for protecting the safety of city residents. These positions included Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Fire bossand the head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), all of whom have failed the city. On its website, it proudly declares its commitment to “ensuring that our administration truly reflects the full diversity of the people of Los Angeles,” rather than a commitment to hiring the best and brightest.

Thanks to the feds, we now know definitively that the fire and its spread could have been completely prevented. The ATF determined that the Jan. 7 fire was a re-ignition of a very small fire started by the arsonist on New Year’s Day. The fire burned only eight acres, and the arsonist even called 911 immediately after it broke out. However, anyone familiar with wildfires knows that just because they’re extinguished doesn’t mean they can’t reignite, especially when dealing with overgrown brush.

“The fire burned deep in the ground, in roots and structures, and remained active for several days,” reported ATF agent for the case, Kenny Cooper. He recalled that when he worked for a state forestry agency, “We would have a lightning strike, and it would hit a tree, and it would burn for days, sometimes weeks, and then it would ignite into a forest fire. We would go in to put it out, and then every day, for weeks on end, we would patrol those areas to make sure it didn’t start up again.”

Flames from the Palisades Fire burn down a building on Sunset Boulevard amid a strong wind storm on January 8, 2025, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. (Abu Gomez)

But this did not happen at the checkpoints. Instead, according to the ATF, the LAFD returned the next day to collect its hoses and did not return until it reignited on January 7, when it was too late. ATF results are A A stinging indictment From LAFD. From other reports, we also know that the LAFD did almost nothing to prepare for the possibility of a fire despite the red flag warning being issued, such as pre-deploying fire engines to sensitive areas.

The fire chief was Christine Crowley, an LGTB female and herself known for recruiting DEI. (As the Los Angeles Times reported, she “elevated historically marginalized younger deputies to replace older veterans.”) Bass fired her after Crowley partly blamed the mayor’s budget cuts to the department for failing to better contain the fire.

She wasn’t wrong. Under Bass, the city has increased spending on the homeless while reducing spending on basic services to protect residents. Last year, the council passed a budget that provided $1.3 billion for homeless-related expenses while cutting the fire department by $17 million. The city has the same number of fire stations today as it did in the 1960s.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley, left, address the media at a news conference on Saturday, January 11, 2025. (Allen J. Chapin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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We also know that they suffered from water shortages because the Santa Ynez Reservoir, built to provide water to fight fires in Palisades and managed by LADWP, sat empty for nearly a year awaiting minor repairs, causing all of Palisades’ fire hydrants to run dry by the evening of the fire. The fault lies with Janice Quinones, who Bass chose to run the department, a Latina born and raised in Puerto Rico who has a degree from the University of Puerto Rico. Her experience was in the field of energy, not water. Without the tank, firefighters were left with three million gallons of water instead of more than 100 million. Repair cost: $130,000.

We also knew that at the time Bass left for GhanaThere was no public safety official in the city. That’s because Public Safety Deputy Sheriff Brian Williams, a Black man, was suspended at the time for calling a bogus bomb threat to police. He admits he did it and says it was to get out of a long meeting. He recently pleaded guilty to felony “fire and explosive threats.” Bass did not replace him until April, months after the fire.

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The city is “working toward closure and justice — and today is a step forward in that process,” Bass said of the Justice Department’s indictment of the arsonist. It’s a small first step. Justice means that those responsible pay the price. For the arsonist, this means prison. For Bass, that means resigning from her position.

If she had any feeling of shame, she would have done so immediately upon her return from Ghana. Instead, she charged herself with leading the recovery of the city she had devastated. She recently announced her candidacy for re-election. In deep blue Los Angeles, she is the favorite to win.

Click here to read more from Jim Breslow