For the last few days, a series of California wildfires have ripped through various parts of the Los Angeles area, leaving a trail of utter destruction in their wake.
Homes, churches, schools, and monuments have been burned to the ground. Recent reports indicate that nearly 180,000 residents have been forced to evacuate their homes. Ten deaths have been confirmed, with the toll expected to rise.
Already, fingers are being pointed and accusations of gross incompetence hurled at California authorities, including fire chief Kristin Crowley, whose top priority has been DEI initiatives, Mayor Karen Bass (D), who slashed fire department funding, and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), whom Trump lambasted for not signing a bill that would have increased California’s water supply.
Naturally, many are asking the question: Was this tragedy preventable?
While Glenn Beck certainly doesn’t want to over-politicize a calamity, he’s long seen the writing on the wall: When it comes to wildfires, poor choices on the part of California authorities and voters teed up this disaster.
While the wildfires themselves might not have been entirely preventable, had the state made smarter choices in forestry management, allocation of resources, and voting, perhaps “the extent of the destruction in California could [have been] mitigated,” says Glenn.
“California has been playing with fire, literally, for a long time,” he explains. “Their forests are full of underbrush, dead trees, and dried vegetation, which is kindling for those flames.”
Glenn compares California to other countries and states, like Sweden, Finland, Austria, and even our own Florida, that are also at high risk for wildfires due to their geography but nonetheless take the precautions necessary to prevent devastating conflagrations.
Why won’t California take the same protective measures?
“The answer lies in bureaucracy and priorities” — “the environmental regulations, the lawsuits that block or delay any kind of forest management,” says Glenn. “Ideology has gotten in the way of the practical, the lifesaving solutions, and this has to change.”
Water (or the lack thereof) is the other main issue contributing to the crisis in L.A.
“Firefighters don’t have water coming through the fire hydrants,” says Glenn, noting that California’s “water storage capacity is exactly the same as it was almost half a century ago” because the state hasn’t built a new water reservoir since 1979, despite a dramatic increase in population.
On top of that, “billions of gallons of rainwater flow straight into the ocean every year because [California hasn’t] built the infrastructure to capture and store the rainwater.”
Imagine how L.A.’s current wildfire catastrophe might look different if the state had “reservoirs and aqueducts and desalination plants to store and provide water,” says Glenn. “California has spent decades neglecting its water infrastructure while prioritizing projects that make no meaningful impact on people’s lives. This is not a failure just of government; it is a failure of vision.”
To hear more of Glenn’s analysis and commentary, watch the clip above.
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