What's really causing California's wildfires?
A long history of human factors.
As I’ve flipped around on TV and the Internet to look at the California wildfire coverage, I rarely hear the national reporters and analysts addressing what is really one of the most important and obvious elements: What’s causing the fires?
The announcers use language such as, “Six more fires broke out…” and “Two more fires popped up,” as if somehow fires are mysteriously spontaneously combusting out of nowhere.
Well, we all know that doesn’t happen.
Why isn’t there more reporting emphasis on getting at the causes of these fires? Even if we don’t know suspected causes for all of them, there are certainly investigations underway, and suspicions for some of them.
But too often it’s as if the news reporters don’t seem very curious. They don’t point out what’s being done to figure out the causes, or what the suspected causes are.
A look at recent history shows that arson and faulty power lines are most frequently to blame for California’s fires. Lightning strikes from storms are also a factor, but in recent weeks there have been no reports of storms in the afflicted area.
On my Sunday television program “Full Measure,” we’ve been reporting on the human factors behind a lot of the devastation in California’s past wildfires, and in the aftermath of the current disasters.
For example, in November of 2018, flames blew through Paradise, California in less than 24 hours, torching more than 31 square miles. It became known as the Camp Fire, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 19,000 homes.
The fire was caused by electrical transmission lines, owned and operated by PG&E.
According to a 700-page investigation by the state, PG&E failed to inspect and maintain an aging electrical tower. It wasn't an isolated case. PG&E equipment reportedly sparked 19 major blazes in 2017 and 2018.
PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and agreed to pay $13.5 billion to victims of the Camp Fire and other fires, and hundreds of millions to the local government.
With many open questions in the latest California fires, critics point to man made contributors to the resulting disaster: fire department budget cuts, canceled insurance policies, corruption scandals, the state’s destruction of dams that once held crucial water, an empty water reservoir near the main fire and broken or dry fire hydrants.
Read on for details. And watch my TV report below.
Transcript from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Once again, California’s tragic wildfires were predicted—and predictable. And once again, as they’ve done for years, they’re gobbling up billions in state and federal taxpayer dollars as critics ask why it seems to be deja vu all over again.
The causes of at least six simultaneous fires in the Los Angeles area are still under investigation. Tens of thousands of acres burned. Dozens dead or missing. More than 10,000 homes and businesses reduced to ashes.
President Biden declared federal taxpayers will pick up 6 months’ of response and recovery costs.
President Biden: So today I'm announcing the federal government will cover 100% of the cost for 180 days.
While some are quick to fault climate change or Mother Nature, the hand of man is often to blame in California’s fire disasters, with arson and faulty utility Iines top causes.
Full Measure’s Lisa Fletcher covered the investigation into the state’s deadliest fire.
Lisa Fletcher: It was November of 2018, flames blew through Paradise in less than 24 hours, torching more than 31 square miles. It became known as the Camp Fire, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 19,000 homes. The fire was caused by electrical transmission lines, owned and operated by PG&E. According to a 700-page investigation by the state, PG&E failed to inspect and maintain an aging electrical tower. It wasn't an isolated case. PG&E equipment reportedly sparked 19 major blazes in 2017 and 2018.
PG&E, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and agreed to pay $13.5 billion to victims of the Camp Fire and other fires, and hundreds of millions to the local government.
With many open questions in the latest fires, critics point to man made contributors to the resulting disaster: fire department budget cuts, canceled insurance policies, corruption scandals, the state’s destruction of dams that once held crucial water, an empty water reservoir near the main fire and broken or dry fire hydrants.
California’s political and public officials have been mired in disarray. California Governor Gavin Newsom approached by a mom near her child’s burned out school.
Rachel Darvish: Governor please tell me what are you going to do right now?
Gavin Newsom: We’re getting the resources to help rebuild.
Darvish: Why was there no water in the hydrants, governor? Is it going to be different next time?
Newsom: It has to be.
When asked about supposedly dry hydrants, Newsom said this.
https://fullmeasure.news/newest-videos/la-fires-01-17-2025
Newsom: Local folks are trying to figure that out. When you have a system, not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinary large scale fires, whether it be pipe or electricity or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system. I mean, those hydrants are typical for two or three fires, maybe one fire.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass insists the $17 million in fire department budget cuts she pushed for didn’t impact the fires, contrary to a memo written earlier by the fire chief.
Karen Bass: I think if you go back and look at the reductions that were made, there were no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.
Meantime, LA’s fire chief and the head of the water department, she’s paid $750,000 a year and came from the beleaguered PG&E, had emphasized equity as a top priority.
Janisse Quiñones: It's important to me that everything we do it’s with an equity lens and social justice, and making sure that we right the wrongs that we’ve done in the past.
Add to the list of unforced errors the state poorly maintaining forests and vegetation. Experts have told us that’s a big reason why California alone suffers such regular outbursts of these uniquely destructive fires.
As Lisa Fletcher reported, South Carolina is among the states using a different management strategy.
Pritchard: Whenever you burn on a regular basis, it reduces the chance of there being a catastrophic wildfire. The crew is doing that with a “prescribed burn.” A fire set and contained to a defined area, under specific weather conditions.
Pritchard: If a fire were to come in here, say in the summer by lightning or anything like that, the intensity is going to be much less than if it had never been burned.
South Carolina is a leader in this practice, recently conducting prescribed burns on more than 340,000 acres of land. That’s more than what 9 western states burned, combined.
Ron Holt, Pritchard’s colleague at the South Carolina Forestry Commission, says a contrary mindset in the west may contribute to what fuels those catastrophic blazes.
Ron Holt: Land managers, who try to burn, whether it's a private or federal, they have to go through so much, regulations and get approvals. And by the time they go through the process, that much more fuel has built up on the ground. And the land manager may have to start over with the burn plan.
California’s problems were predictable and predicted. Donald Trump as candidate Trump was among those warning about fire disaster looming in California.
Donald Trump: I was with the head of Austria. He said, “you know it's a shame, I see all those forest fires in California,” and all they have to do is clean their forest, meaning, rake it up, get rid of the leaves, leaves that are sitting there for five years.
While federal taxpayers have little control over California’s policies, they’ll ultimately be picking up much of the cost of the fallout—as they have in the past—estimated in the billions.
Sharyl (on camera): Governor Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the dry fire hydrants and water shortages.
The fires were not only predicted and predictable, as most fires in California are, but much of the subsequent damage was preventable with better leadership, management, and stewardship. Statistics suggest that humans, mainly the homeless, start half the wildfires. And terrorism can't be ruled out, either.
Powerlines in California except on Federal lands only are permitted six foot clearance. That is why there are problems. Just about everywhere else has about a football field sized Clearance. That is one of the biggest reasons
Use federal standards and the problem fades away.