Fires have burned through 36,000 acres in Los Angeles County, destroyed or damaged over 10,000 buildings, displaced tens of thousands of residents, and claimed the lives of at least 10 people. By midday Friday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire protections
indicated that only 3% of the Eaton fire, 35% of the Kenneth fire, 37% of the Hurst fire, and 8% of the Pacific Palisades fire had been contained.
While seemingly unstoppable, the
Palisades fire, which began on Tuesday and has devoured homes, businesses, schools, and other structures alike, appears to have left the Palisades Village, an outdoor mall developed by Rick Caruso, largely untouched, reported SF Gate.
It appears the mall may have survived because Caruso, the former president of the Department of Water and Power who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2022, did not leave the structure’s fate up to the city, whose mayor, Karen Bass, has been gallivanting around Africa and whose fire department recently had its budget cut while
prioritizing diversity over quality.
According to the New York Times, Caruso had a team of private firefighters deployed in the area Tuesday night to protect the mall, which he owns, as well as nearby houses.
‘This is a window into a systemic problem of the city.’
While taking matters into his own hands appears to have paid off — the mall is, after all, still standing — Caruso
told the Los Angeles Times that the Palisades Village, which opened in 2018, still suffered some damage.
Caruso criticized the city for dropping the ball on infrastructure, particularly on water supply.
Within hours of the fire’s initial spread, the first two of three one-million gallon municipal storage tanks that supply water to the hydrants in Pacific Palisades and other communities were depleted. The third was reportedly drained by Wednesday morning.
“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” said Caruso. “The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen.”
L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park similarly blasted the water issues, stating Wednesday, “The chronic under-investment in the city of Los Angeles in our public infrastructure and our public safety partners was evident and on full display over the last 24 hours.”
Janisse Quiñones, chief executive of the DWP, said that the three tanks above the Palisades “help with the pressure on the fire hydrants in the hills in the Palisades, and because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used. … We were not able to fill the tanks fast enough.”
“This is a window into a systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old,” said Caruso.”
‘Budgetary reductions have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations.’
“We have got a mayor that is out of the country, and we have got a city that is burning, and there is no resources to put out fires,” the former mayoral candidate
told KTTV-TV. “It looks like we’re in a third-world country here.”
Bass apparently thought it was a good idea several months ago to cut the budget for the city’s fire department.
Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia
confirmed in October that Bass and the city council cut the LAFD’s budget by $17.6 million for this fiscal year.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times,
told Fox News Digital Thursday, “The mayor wanted $23 million [cut], she got $17.8 million as I understand. But that’s a sort of, really, I think a bad call, especially water and fire is exactly, you know, I see the end result of that devastation.”
L.A. Fire Chief Kristen Crowley
noted in a Dec. 17, 2024, report that “budgetary reductions have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.”
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Karen bass, Bass, Los angeles, Pacific palisades, Palisades, La fire, Fire, Fires, California, Caruso, Politics
