My wife and I live in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. We’ve been safe during the fires but, unfortunately, my stepson lost his house. Like many others, he lost everything. And at least 25 people have died.
My stepson is ok. He’s lucky, if that can be said–he’s safe and has us and other family and friends nearby. You might be or know someone in need—there are a few organizations you can turn to or donate to in addition to helping out your own friends and family members. There has been and will be lots of neighbor helping neighbor, places of worship and people of faith pitching in, nonprofit organizations, local businesses, and public agencies providing important and necessary services. That is as it should be—we often come together in traumatic times like these.
It’s common to say we shouldn’t “politicize” disasters, natural and unnatural. Some are politicizing the fires purely for personal gain or to score political points. It’s disgusting. But exploring the deeper issues and how we got here is something we all need to do – even as we help those deal with the very real impacts on our lives.
The fires put into stark relief the principles that underlie our work: There are things that government must do and which only government can do. It is the public acting in the public interest.
The more than 7,500 fire fighters and emergency personnel from across the country who have been working around the clock battling these blazes are public employees. They are the ones heading toward the flames when everyone is fleeing. More than 1,000 incarcerated individuals who have volunteered to join emergency crews for 24-hour shifts for about $26 a day are also fighting the fires—our gratitude for their efforts shouldn’t dismiss the deep concerns we have about the program and policies that lead to it.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is, as its title states, a federal agency. It’s what we created that shows that we are all equally invested in handling the aftermath of emergencies, whether we live in hurricane alley, or the path of wildfires. FEMA is already helping, providing the wide range of emergency services that no private, for-profit entity can afford to do. And yet it’s been the subject of constant criticism and misinformation from the right. FEMA currently covers 75 percent of the cost of a national emergency; Project 2025 proposes reducing that to 25 percent.
And, yes, climate change is part of the reason for the severity and spread of the fire, and scrubbing the phrase from the statements of federal agencies, as conservatives have advocated, or calling it a hoax, won’t change the facts.
The fires underscore that land development and water management are not concerns that can be simply left to the market. The market maximizes profit in the shortest time frame. That is not what will build a sustainable Los Angeles of the 21st Century. The future of cities and the entire nation shouldn’t be left up to billionaires, like the one who hired private firefighters to keep his own shopping center safe, and then launched his mayoral campaign.
To say these things doesn’t “politicize” the crisis—the politics are already there. We are always in a fight for what we believe our responsibility is to one another in our communities and in society at large. That fight will get harder, no doubt, as conservatives pledge to drain government of its ability to act broadly for the common good. But we also have faith that more and more people will come to understand the importance of a government that works for us all, not just the very wealthy.
Donald Cohen
Executive Director
p.s. While we think of the broader issues, don’t forget that thousands have lost homes, and small businesses, schools, places of worship have been burned to the ground. They need all the help they can get so reach out, donate, volunteer to help wherever you can.