The picture of what happened is now clear. Los Angeles’s Mayor underfunded and defunded the firefighters, which prevented them from doing the “pre-deployment” necessary. The utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), drained a crucial reservoir that may have prevented one of the worst fires from becoming catastrophic. And, over the last decade, Governor Gavin Newsom and the mayors of Los Angeles incentivized homelessness by giving away free housing without conditions, allowing open-air drug dealing, and not enforcing anti-camping laws.
