By ERWIN FREED
This article was updated on Jan. 13.
Fire reigns in Los Angeles. A perfect storm of drought, extremely high winds, and low humidity combined with the effects of over 100 years of capitalist development, urban sprawl, and poor forest management to create the onslaught. The weather in Southern California is forecast to remain warm and windy, with not a drop of rain, for some days to come—ideal conditions for fires to continue to spread. Ironically, as a likely consequence of climate change, most of the rest of the country is seeing unusually wet and cold conditions.
Major fire disasters have increased in frequency in the Los Angeles area, becoming virtually a yearly occurrence. And whereas “fire season” used to run from about August to November, the danger now persists throughout much of the year. “A majority of the largest, deadliest, and most destructive wildfires in state history have all occurred within the past 10 years,“ meteorologist Eric Holthaus pointed out in a piece for Fast Company. ”The emergence of extreme wintertime wildfires in California presents one of those classic ‘this is climate change’ moments: A specific set of weather conditions are now occurring in such a way to produce the potential for rare disasters to become much more common.”
The current LA fires are unprecedented in their size and in the amount of destruction they have caused. As of Jan. 13, at least 12,300 structures have been destroyed, with an estimated cost of over $250 billion in damages. Over 179,000 people have been under evacuation orders. At least 24 people are dead, although the final number will likely be higher.
Climate change is making fires more intense. Capitalist political economy is making them more deadly. This is the case all over the world; interested readers can see previous articles in Workers’ Voice on Canada and Brazil.
California has a history with this convergence that deserves study. Genocide carried out by U.S. imperialism and its settler foot soldiers against the area’s Indigenous peoples in the mid-19th century paved the way, or perhaps laid the tracks, to our current hellscape. By the end of the 1800s, timber industrialists induced the state and federal governments to implement a forest management policy of “total suppression,” which continues to this day.
For thousands of years, as was well known to everyone in the U.S. Forest Service who made these decisions, Indigenous communities maintained controlled burns, which became a regular part of the land’s life-cycle. Abandoning these basic forest management practices creates a massive buildup of kindling.
As Euro-Americans carried out a great replacement in what is now the “American West,” they brought new non-native plant and animal life with them. This includes all of the famous palm trees that line Southern California’s streets. UC Division of Agriculture and Resources points out that “invasive plants often increase the frequency of fires by providing more-continuous fuels that are easier to ignite.” In addition, as the earth warms, trees, brush, and other plants are becoming drier in this region, and therefore more susceptible to uncontrollable burns.
Real estate capital has taken an increased role in creating fire catastrophes in recent years. In particular, Los Angeles and nearby communities like Malibu are in historic fire zones, where forest fires roll to the sea. Mike Davis made the point about the ludicrousness of this situation in his important essay “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” As gentrification drives so-called “exurban sprawl,” more and more communities are placed directly in areas with a “wildland-urban interface” (WUI). These decisions by developers to build cities and towns where massive forest fires are an inevitability is an essential cause of the current crisis.
“Disaster capitalism” is in full swing both economically and ideologically. Paralleling the process of defunding essential services and infrastructure repair, the 2024-2025 LA budget cut $17.5 million from the city’s fire department. At the same time, the police department’s funding has grown, including for effectively permanent vacant positions.
Fox Business has already put out an article insinuating that money is being redirected from firefighting to “homelessness.” That same article claims that most of the money appropriated to for fighting homelessness is unused. We could go further to say that the city, and the United States in general, have completely abandoned homeless communities. A small, but related and important, example was a fire on South Block last December that burned a “vacant” building that housed many people. Homeless people are the most at risk and vulnerable to all disasters. There is a big question of if, and more likely how, the ruling class will use this current tragedy to deepen attacks against homeless communities.
Federal, state, and local authorities appear to have been caught completely unprepared for the possibility of a fire of this scale. Evacuation has been disastrous in itself, with many people abandoning their cars on roads and freeways and running for their lives. After escaping the frequent fires in the region, thousands of long-time, working-class residents are facing continuing crises as insurers pull out of California.
Ultimately, there is no amount of “fire fighting” or suppression techniques that can stop the destruction of large blazes in California. The confluence of climate change, environmental destruction, and corporate water theft mean that the scale of the disasters can only grow. Capitalists’ interests are best exemplified by the legions of “private firefighters” paid millions of dollars to carry out the Sisyphean task of protecting individual mansions and estates.
Hundreds of prisoners are currently fighting the fires in Los Angeles, with many receiving $1 per hour or even less for their hazardous work. Prisoners comprise about 30% of California’s wild-land fighter-fighting crews; many are brought in from out of state. They are all paid next to nothing. Prisoners are generally given the most dangerous and back-breaking “dirty work” in fighting fires, and have high injury rates.
Looking toward the future: Rebuilding one of the most “iconic” cityscapes in the country will certainly take the form of accelerating gentrification and attempting to smash immigrant, Black, and workers’ organizations. It is the task of working people everywhere in the United States to look clear-eyed at this situation and understand that it will only repeat itself in worsening ways, especially as climate change intensifies and Trump persists with his “drill, baby, drill” obsession. The only alternative to continuing devastation is a mass build-out of renewable infrastructure, ending the practices of unsustainable, deadly development on an international level, and rematriating land to Indigenous communities. Working people have a direct interest in creating these changes, and they are the only social force capable of carrying them through all the way.
Photo: Gene Blevins / Reuters