The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
- Karl Marx
State Farm seeks an emergency insurance rate increase after LA wildfires
California Is a Disaster Zone—And We’re Letting It Burn
Welcome to California: where the air is thick with smoke, the ground cracks beneath our feet, and the next big earthquake is just waiting to wipe us off the map.
We live in a state that should be uninhabitable, yet we act as if nothing’s wrong. Fires rage, homes turn to ash, and people are left scrambling—only for everything to repeat next year.
This isn’t a freak event. This is the price we pay for arrogance, shortsightedness, and a refusal to act until the flames are licking at our own doorsteps.
Let’s start with the obvious: California burns because we let it burn. Every year, tens of thousands of homes are destroyed, billions of dollars vanish in smoke, and communities are left in ruins.
The cause? Defective power lines, reckless urban sprawl, and decades of ignoring Indigenous fire management techniques that could have prevented this mess.
Our leaders—too spineless to enforce real change—would rather watch entire neighborhoods go up in flames than challenge utility companies or demand real accountability.
Here’s the truth: We could fix this. We could bury power lines underground, preventing the vast majority of wildfires from ever starting.
But no, that would cost money, and money is more important than human lives. Instead of investing in prevention, we pour billions into fighting fires only after they’ve started.
Meanwhile, housing developers keep pushing deeper into wildfire zones, building homes with materials that may as well be kindling. And what’s our solution? More expensive insurance, higher rents, and leaving the poor to fend for themselves.
The disaster profiteers are thriving. As soon as homes burn down, landlords jack up prices, developers snatch up cheap land, and insurers hike premiums.
It’s a feeding frenzy where only the wealthy win. The same people who lose everything in these fires—disproportionately working-class and communities of color—are the ones who can’t afford to rebuild.
They are forced out, while luxury homes rise from the ashes, waiting for the next wave of destruction. This isn’t misfortune. It’s manufactured disaster capitalism.
And let’s not forget the looming earthquake—the one seismologists have been warning us about for decades. The "Big One" will make these fires look like a minor inconvenience.
But are we reinforcing buildings? Preparing infrastructure? Ensuring that our water supply isn’t wiped out when it hits? Of course not.
Just like with fires, we’ll wait until it happens, act surprised, and then spend billions in relief while politicians hold press conferences about how "no one could have seen this coming."
If we actually cared about our future, we’d stop this cycle today. Bury the power lines. Mandate fire-resistant building materials. Enforce controlled burns. Reinstate rent control so disaster victims aren’t priced out of their own neighborhoods.
Hold utility companies accountable. Tax the billionaires who benefit from this mess and make them pay for the destruction they helped create. And above all, stop pretending that living in California isn’t a calculated gamble where the house always wins.
But that won’t happen. Because deep down, we’ve accepted that California is a place of endless destruction. We don’t want to change. We just want to pretend it’s all normal—until the fire, the flood, or the earthquake comes for us next.
The Brutal Reality—and the Solutions We Ignore
A combination of extreme conditions, poor planning, and delayed evacuations contributed to the widespread devastation around Los Angeles.
There were also specific limitations on the region’s network of fire hydrants, including a large reservoir that was offline for maintenance.
But in most cases, experts say, a working hydrant system would be inadequate for fighting a large-scale wildfire. While hydrants can provide a valuable first line of defense in the early stages of a wildfire, they can quickly run dry when those fires burn out of control, and especially when wind gusts carry embers across a city.
So how do we limit neighborhoods’ risk against wildfires? The solutions exist—we just refuse to implement them at scale.
Defensible space around homes, limiting fuel sources like wooden fences, and adopting Indigenous forest management strategies like prescribed burns would make a world of difference. Yet we still don’t take these precautions seriously.
Los Angeles has started taking steps to prepare, but there are crucial lessons to be learned from other cities that have adapted to extreme fire weather.
Managing yards, looking out for neighbors, and improving evacuation routes could all mitigate future devastation. One major challenge, however, is that these plans need widespread adoption. A single well-prepared home won’t survive if the house next door is a fire hazard.
Building codes and zoning laws matter. But perhaps most of all, money matters. Building for an age of fire is expensive, and many homeowners in fire-prone communities simply cannot afford it.
Yet, instead of providing real assistance, the system punishes them—raising insurance rates, denying coverage, and ultimately pushing them out.
Rethinking Our Approach Before It’s Too Late
Los Angeles has its own ticking time bomb: palm trees. Many palm species, once ignited, are nearly impossible to extinguish. Fire-prone areas should ban them outright, yet they continue to be a staple of the California aesthetic.
We know how to make homes less flammable—concrete, stucco, and engineered wood are vastly superior to traditional wood frames.
Fire-resistant roofs and laminated glass windows can dramatically reduce the risk of destruction. Sealed eaves and overhangs prevent embers from finding a foothold.
But modern fire-resistant building codes mean nothing when most homes were built before they existed, and upgrading is prohibitively expensive for many homeowners.
Then there’s the issue of evacuation. The cul-de-sacs and winding streets that define many wildfire-adjacent neighborhoods, like the Berkeley Hills, become death traps when people try to flee, and first responders struggle to get in.
The reality? Most of these areas were built without fire evacuation in mind. There’s no room for new roads—but at the very least, we could prohibit street parking in high-risk zones on dangerous weather days. Rancho Santa Fe, a wealthy suburb of San Diego, already does this, keeping residential roads clear at all times to ensure emergency vehicles can move freely. Yet in most other communities, we do nothing.
A Call to Action—Before It’s Too Late
The choice is clear. We either take the necessary steps to prepare for our new climate reality, or we continue pretending that the cycle of disaster is inevitable.
We need aggressive infrastructure improvements, stricter fire codes, proactive land management, and—above all—accountability for the corporations and policymakers who enable this crisis.
The alternative? More destruction. More displacement. More lives lost.
But if history has taught us anything, it’s that California won’t change—until it’s too late.
Sincerely,
Adaptation-Guide
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