Burning questions as LA blazes

As the Los Angeles fires rage, the toll continues to rise with numerous luxury properties owned by Hollywood stars and rich businessmen reduced to ashes.

The fires are a sad and tragic reminder of the dry weather that has transformed southern California into a tinderbox.

What is happening on the hillsides there is also what local billionaire Rick Caruso called "a window into a systemic problem of the city" - which concerns not only the aging infrastructure but also the management.

Californians are no strangers to hill fires - there are usually one or two major outbreaks each year - but the latest are the most devastating in the state's recent history.

They have also caught more attention than previous blazes for a number of reasons.

For one, the disaster zones are homes to the state's richest people - Mother Nature is fair to all, knowing no borders, regardless of wealth.

A video clip circulated quickly in the mainland and on YouTube in which a narrator going by the name of "Elon Musk" said America's response to the Los Angeles fires was like the third-world and compared it to how efficient the Chinese had been in reacting to the wildfires in Chongqing in 2022 and the recent earthquake in Tibet.

It was an eye-opening narration in view of Musk's role in Donald Trump's team. Could Musk be trying to unleash a new round of attacks on California governor and the Democrats' 2028 presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom?

The clip-carrying YouTube channel "Musktalk007" has only 5,250 subscribers - and such a low subscription rate leaves little doubt that the "Musk" in the video clip could not be the world's richest man.

Artificial intelligence again demonstrates its capabilities.

Still, there is a grain of truth in it from which one can learn. As said, although Californians are no strangers to hill fires there is disbelief and anger at just how badly the state was unprepared for such an annual occurrence.

Some facts are undeniable: one, a number of fire hydrants were dry; and two, insurance companies were so well aware of the very real tinderbox risk that they decided not to accept new customers and terminate existing policies for fire coverage. For example, State Farm no longer accepted customers there and terminated 72,000 policies prior to the fires breaking out.

Fact three: Trump issued a presidential memorandum in the final year of his first presidency to divert water from the water-rich northern California to the south. This was blocked by the Democratic state, which cited a need to protect an endangered fish species.

On his Truth Social post, Trump called it the "water restoration declaration".

Strictly speaking, Newsom was not wrong to hit back that there was no such declaration as it was officially known as a memorandum, not a declaration - just one word different.

Nonetheless, one of the basic questions facing the governor is that, while the insurance sector was so aware of the very real risk and decided to give up the market in California, the local authorities continued to day dream without progressing to mitigate the danger in advance.

It is more likely than not that Newsom's hopes of running for president in 2028 will also go up in smoke along with the Los Angeles fires.