From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Frank Ricci

California’s wildfire crisis is a result of a mix of poor public policy, excuses and administrative overreach. This crisis is not solely due to natural phenomena but is exacerbated by years of misguided priorities and policy mismanagement.

In California, regulation has often been elevated to a near-religious status, where compliance with progressive ideals sometimes comes at the expense of public safety. This regulatory environment turns practical solutions into bureaucratic nightmares, where even simple tasks require navigating an endless maze of permissions and paperwork.

The result is a state where water resources are mismanaged, from inadequate retention to failing to have sound contingency plans for pumping when power is out or ensuring the system is designed to handle the fire load.

There is an overemphasis on environmentally friendly policies without adequately balancing the needs of the population or accurately measuring their impact and effectiveness.

When your home is on fire, you need a quick, competent response, properly supported by staffing, resources and clear lines of authority.

The prioritization of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) over merit-based hiring is evident in places like the Los Angeles Fire Department under Chief Kristin Crowley. Her commitment to DEI is often highlighted, leading one to question if this has potentially compromised operational readiness.

The primary focus of fire departments should be on the priority of life safety, incident stabilization and property conservation. When diversity overshadows meritocracy, there’s a shift from equal opportunity to equal outcomes.

Across blue states, there is a trend where HR managers focus more on diversity and soft quotas than ensuring applicants have the necessary physical strength, mechanical aptitude and cognitive ability for the job, regardless of immutable characteristics.

LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson, in a recorded statement, responded to a query about her ability to rescue someone from a fire by saying, “Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? Well, my response is he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”

In the same clip, she focused on the racial composition of firefighters rather than their competence.

Merit should be blind to race or sex; it is about ensuring that firefighters or officers can master the skills, knowledge and ability needed to do the job.

Victor Davis Hanson has commented: “It was a total systems collapse from the idea of not spending money on irrigation, storage, water, fire prevention, force management, a viable insurance industry, a DEI hierarchy. You put it all together and it’s something like a DEI-Green New Deal hydrogen bomb.”

Moreover, fire departments in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle and New York are still dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic. There is a call for the reinstatement of firefighters who were dismissed for not being vaccinated, suggesting this was an opportunity to purge viewpoint diversity.

Elected officials should not socially engineer fire departments. True diversity comes from educational opportunities like school choice, opportunity scholarships and breaking the stranglehold of teachers’ unions while holding superintendents accountable.

Qualified personnel and proper water management alone won’t mitigate fires. Congress and California need to untangle the web of conflicting government agencies in wildland fire and forest management, ensuring clear lines of authority for public safety.

Environmentally friendly logging and cooperation with fire services for forest management could provide jobs, create fire lines, and ensure quicker response times.

Advanced technology for early detection, such as sensing fire towers, drones and satellites, should be utilized to direct air assets, allowing for a rapid response with helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft to stop or slow the spread of fire from the onset.

America does not have enough staffed air assets stationed, properly geographically deployed and on alert to respond at a moment’s notice. This means deploying air assets throughout the West Coast and in some cases changing policy to allow flying at night and ensuring availability seven days a week. The same applies to bulldozers and other heavy equipment; they must be pre-approved and ready to respond before any incident occurs, cutting through the red tape.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and the federal government have not met expectations, offering excuses rather than solutions. The public demands accountability not just promises. It is time for California to adopt common-sense wildfire management, focus on merit, manage natural resources wisely and reduce the bureaucratic hurdles that hinder effective action.

Only then can we address this crisis with the urgency and efficiency it demands.

Frank Ricci is a Fellow at Yankee Institute and was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v Destefano. He retired as a Battalion Chief in New Haven CT. He has testified before Congress and is the author of the book, Command Presence.