SHOULD BUILDING PERMITS BE LOOSENED IN FIRE ZONES?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“SHOULD BUILDING PERMITS BE LOOSENED IN FIRE ZONES?”

 

It was almost like a contest to see who could promise the quickest rebuilding when President Trump and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sat down together barely two weeks after the hugely damaging Palisades fire, possibly the most expensive natural disaster in American history.

 

With more than 6,000 Pacific Palisades homes in ashes and most of the area’s business district destroyed, all this odd couple wanted was to make survivors feel they could soon be back in their homes, just as before.

 

They ignored issues that affect not only California, but Texas, Idaho, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest, where homes are often built on the edges of wild lands that can ignite almost as soon as underbrush has time to regrow after the last fire.

 

They also paid no heed to questions of fire insurance, where property owners in areas that will never be threatened by wildfires are about to be dunned hugely to subsidize payments for burned out mansion owners who had every reason to know ahead of time their homes were at risk.

 

Similar rushed rebuilding followed every significant recent wildfire, going back far beyond the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise, which destroyed almost as many homes as the January firestorms in Los Angeles County.

 

Perhaps someone should have acquainted Trump and Bass with local history. For example, the 1978 Mandeville Canyon fire destroyed 30 homes in the some of the same areas as January’s Palisades flames, all plush residences in suburbanized canyons that were quickly rebuilt. Everyone in those gullies and the surrounding areas was on notice they were vulnerable to wildfires.

 

There was also the 1961 Bel Air fire, which decimated 484 homes in the largest previous blaze affecting hundreds of spectacular mansions. Its footprint lies less than five miles from the ashes of the Palisades business district and is even closer to the eastern edge of the fire area visited by Trump.

 

The aftermaths of both those fires saw a similar rush to rebuild, just like local and national leaders are now encouraging. As today, no politicians wanted to discuss the possibility of leaving the land vacant because it will inevitably burn again.

 

Just as in January, the storied Sunset Boulevard was the main 1961 escape route and became congested far beyond the routinely stifling traffic jams that afflicted it daily both this year and 60 years ago. No one bothered to add traffic lanes or new routes as population increased.

 

With all this warning, Trump nevertheless ordered all federal regulations on building in affected areas suspended. Bass did much the same with local regulations, giving architectural firms huge authority to approve plans they themselves draw for rebuilding homeowners.

 

Trump even wanted the rebuild to begin before local agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers could clear toxic material from burned-out homesites. He wanted owners allowed to return immediately, not worrying about possible danger to them.

 

With the burned areas largely decimated and depopulated, maybe it should be time for some rethinking, rather than the same knee-jerk response that’s led to repeat disasters.

 

Instead of loosening permits, perhaps they should be tightened. Here are a few questions authorities ought to consider: Should laws require all new building materials to be fire resistant? 

 

Should new ordinances require heavier fines for failure to clear brush a respectable distance from each home? Should water systems in fire-prone areas be updated to assure water pressure stays up and hydrants keep operating in crises, which they did not at higher elevations in both the Bel Air fire and the two big January ones?

 

Should insurance settlements now being negotiated include added money for such improvements to homes, while new city and county budgets provide for more reliable water pressure?

 

It all depends on the priorities of politicians. If safety and survival tops that list, along with ultimate financial savings to both homeowners and their insurance companies, the answers will be yes to all these questions. Any other response would be an admission of politically expedient priorities to ease things in the short run, but surely expose residents and businesses to far greater long-term danger.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net