At least 11 people have been killed and over 10,000 structures destroyed as wildfires continued to rage across Los Angeles.
Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said that moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.
Barbara Bruderlin, who is the head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the fires as “total devastation and loss”.
“There are areas where everything is gone. There isn’t even a stick of wood left. It’s just dirt,” Bruderlin said.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has come under intense criticism for her absence from the city during the first 24 hours of the crisis, when she was in Ghana, as part of an official White House delegation for the inauguration of that country’s president.
She was assailed by political rivals on the right, including Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass in the 2022 mayoral election, but also faced criticism from left, which accused the mayor of cutting the budget for firefighting to pay for increased policing.
Read also: Nearly 400 incarcerated firefighters deployed as LA battles wildfires
“The consistent defunding of other city programs in order to give the LAPD billions a year has consequences,” Ricci Sergienko, a lawyer and organizer with People’s City Council LA, told the Intercept. “The city is unprepared to handle this fire, and Los Angeles shouldn’t be in that position.”
In an interview with Fox LA, Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley said that a cut of $17m in funding for her department, and problems with the water supply to hydrants in the Palisades, had undercut firefighters’ abilities to respond to the fires.
“My message is the fire department needs to be properly funded,” Crowley said. “It’s not.” Fox LA reporter Gigi Graciette then asked Crowley three times: “Did the city of Los Angeles fail you?” After the third time, Crowley responded simply: “Yes.”
One public official who has chosen not to criticize Bass during the crisis is Los Angeles city controller Kenneth Mejia, whose office drew attention to cuts to the firefighting budget in October in a widely circulated chart showing a massive increase in spending on the police department and cuts to other public services including the fire department.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
