California Protects Itself From Accountability, Then Brags About It

On Sept. 29, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proudly announced that he had signed a set of bills to address the wildfire risk in California, making the state safer. The legislative package “supports new tools to prevent and fight wildfires,” the announcement said. Newsom signed the bills in the presence of firefighters. If you actually read the announcement, you’ll notice that the description of the bills trends toward vagueness: “SB 1153 by Senator Anna Caballero (D-Merced) — Disaster preparedness: urban retail water suppliers and public water systems: wildfire.” So Newsom supports new tools to prevent and fight wildfires by signing … something that involves water systems. You can go read SB 1153 yourself. As residents of the burned-out community of Pacific Palisades sue the City of Los Angeles and the state of California over the fire that destroyed their community, the bill that Newsom signed supports tools against wildfires by releasing public water systems from liability for wildfires: Neither the failure of an urban retail water supplier to implement or comply with any actions identified in subdivision (a) nor the inability of any public water system to maintain water supply or water pressure during a wildfire shall be considered a substantial cause of the damages resulting from a wildfire. See, Californians are safer from wildfire, now, because they can’t sue if there isn’t any water to fight it. Thank your governor for having the courage to sign this important new wildfire protection into law, Californians. He made a point of putting out a press release to brag about signing this. Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, has commented on the bill, but you’ll want to avoid clicking on that link if you don’t like to read profanity. While hydrants often can’t keep up with the demand for water in a major wildfire, Palisades residents are arguing in court that an empty city reservoir in the neighborhood deprived firefighters of a source of water. The documentary filmmaker Gabriel Mann, whose projects focus on wildfire and wildland firefighting, has agreed with the argument. The reservoir, he wrote, “has a Helispot. Since it was offline, the copters — which were the first resources on scene — had to fly miles away to reload, delaying their initial attack at the most critical time: when the fire was still small and manageable. Because that Helispot was offline, copters spent over 6 additional hours outside the fire zone to find water.” But California is safe from wildfire now, because you can’t say that in court anymore. Good job, Gavin. What a thing to brag about. Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at "Tell Me How This Ends," here.