According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, as of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,000 structures have been destroyed, and at least five people have died. There have been nearly 13,926 total emergency responses, 92 wildfires and 29,053 acres burned, per the department.

Los Angeles has declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard has been deployed to assist the hundreds of firefighters – including many from other states – fighting the fires.

President Joe Biden has approved further federal assistance for Los Angeles County as the fires continue to raze homes, schools, businesses and other structures, in addition to scorching vegetation and wildlife in their wake.

“The President’s action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in Los Angeles County,” said a Wednesday statement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.”

The White House announced late Wednesday that Biden will not be making a scheduled trip to Italy this week so he can monitor the raging wildfires in Southern California.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday afternoon during a briefing on the fires, Biden said federal funding will cover debris removal, setting up temporary shelters, and paying first responders.

“I told the governor and local officials, spare no expense,” Biden said in noting he’s surging federal resources into Southern California, including 400 federal firefighters, 30 federal firefighting aircraft and other assets.

The president provided some moral support as well for those enduring the fires that have turned portions of Southern California into a hellscape.

“We are with you,” Biden said. “We’re not going anywhere. To the firefighters and first responders, you are heroes.”

There was at least a brief respite on Thursday morning as the Santa Ana winds lessened somewhat, but forecasters warned that critical fire weather conditions would continue over the next several days.

While winds aren’t expected to reach the extremes of Tuesday night – gusts of up to 100 mph were recorded – potentially damaging winds remain in the forecast into the next week.

“High winds and low relative humidity will continue to support critical fire weather conditions in southern California through Friday,” the National Weather Service said on its website as of Thursday afternoon. “Red Flag Warnings remain in effect.”

The woman, whose daughter’s school burned down, approached the governor in her neighborhood demanding to know how he plans to aid the communities devastated by the five destructive fires that rapidly spread across parts of Los Angeles. Newsom claimed he was attempting to call President Joe Biden, leading the woman to bluntly tell him she did not believe he was about to call the president.

“Can I hear it? Because I don’t believe it,” the woman said. Newsom claimed that he tried “five times” to make the call, prompting the mother to ask why the president was not taking his calls.

“It’s not going through, so I have to get cell service,” Newsom explained.

“Let’s get it, let’s get it, I want to be here when you call the president,” she responded.

“I appreciate [that], I’m doing that right now and we need to get immediate reimbursements, individual assistance to help you. I’m devastated for you, I’m so sorry, especially for your daughter,” Newsom said.

The woman then asked Newsom why the state’s hydrants lacked the water needed to put out the fires. The governor assured her that he is taking all of the necessary steps to provide Californians with the necessary resources before cutting the conversation short and stepping into his vehicle.

“What are you gonna do? I would fill up [the hydrants] personally you know that,” she said. “I would fill up all of the hydrants myself. But would you do that?”

“I would do whatever I can,” the governor replied.

“But you’re not,” she interjected. “I see — do you know there’s water dripping over there, governor? There’s water coming out of there, you can use it.”

“I appreciate that, I’m gonna make the call to address everything I can right now, including making sure people are safe,” the governor answered.

An analysis from OpenTheBooks, a government transparency organization, said that Los Angeles lacked the budget to fund adequate fire hydrants despite the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) having received substantial taxpayer-funded salaries. Several fire hydrants in the state ran dry as the LADWP and fire department officials attempted to combat the flames that destroyed thousands of homes, neighborhoods and communities in the area.

pic.twitter.com/IljfVSSNmd

— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) January 9, 2025

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley committed significant resources to an internal “racial equity plan” and other diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Over 100,000 people had to evacuate their homes and at least five people have died, though officials believe the death toll is higher, according to the Los Angeles Times. About 1,000 homes in Pacific Palisades and the same number of residences in Eaton Canyon perished after the areas were set ablaze.

Residents told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday that they did not expect their homes and personal belongings to completely perish, and that they received notice to evacuate without any prior warning.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

(Daily Signal)—I’m here in California. I’ve been a lifelong resident of the state, fifth generation to live in the same house. I had a house in the Sierra, and it would almost burn down three years ago during the Aspen Fire, and I’m speaking on the evening when you’ve all heard about the disastrous fire in Los Angeles.

As I’m speaking on a Wednesday night, there have been 15,000 acres, 1,000 structures destroyed. Nobody knows how many people are killed or missing. And how do we characterize this? Everybody’s talking about the Santa Ana winds, climate change—I mean everybody, the people in power.

But it was preventable. And once it started, this fire, it could have been assuaged. You could have had it lessened, that the severity didn’t have to be as catastrophic. So, I would characterize it as a DEI–Green New Deal hydrogen bomb. It’s something out of “Dante’s Inferno.”

And what I mean by that is, it’s a systems breakdown, a civilizational collapse. When you look at the people in charge, [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom flew in, to sort of do these performance-art stunts, but he has systematically ensured that water out of the Sacramento River and the watershed of Northern California would go out to the sea, rather than into the aqueduct, so Los Angeles didn’t have sufficient amounts of water.

He bragged not very long ago that he blew up four dams on the Klamath River. They provided 80,000 homes with clean hydroelectric power. They offered recreation, flood control, irrigation. He blew them up.

California’s fire management, whether we look at the Paradise Fire or the Aspen Fire near where I’m speaking, it destroyed 60 million trees. We have no timber industry in California. [Newsom’s] dismantled it.

We don’t clean the forest. We don’t let loggers come in and have a viable livelihood by harvesting trees. It’s sort of considered natural to let these things burn or to at least create the conditions in which they will inevitably be burned.

It’s almost as if we don’t like humans. We worry about grubs and worms and birds and the ecosystem.

The second breakdown was the mayor, Karen Bass, was in Africa. You tell me why the mayor of the third-largest city in the United States at fire season, when she had been warned and warned for days on end that the Santa Ana winds were up to 100 miles an hour in the evening, and there was a danger of fire, and she goes off to Africa for the inauguration of the president of Ghana.

With all due respect, Mayor, but who cares? You have an obligation to the 6 million people of greater Los Angeles. And then we have the fire chief. I don’t really care that she’s LGBTQ, I don’t care [about] any of that. All I do care is her emphases. She’s been bragging for the last two years that her goal was to make sure [the Fire Department] was diverse and inclusive.

That can be good if it’s competent. But when you announce that 70% of your hiring will not be meritocratic, but will be based on diversity, equity, inclusion, then you’re not putting the interest of your constituents first.

There were not even enough, there wasn’t enough water pressure in Pacific Palisades. Pacific Palisades is not where I live. It’s one of the wealthiest, most exclusive neighborhoods in the United States. If they don’t have water, then no one’s going to get water, believe me.

There’s not enough insurance. There were famous actors that didn’t have insurance. Why? Because industry is overregulated, it’s fraught with people who make fraudulent claims, and the insurance industry knows that California is hostile to it, but more importantly that it will never clean up its forest or take preventive, time-tried, ancient protocols to lessen the dangers of fire.

And so put it all together, whether it’s a deliberate policy to not store water, not preserve water. Last year was one of the wettest years that we’ve had. We’ve had three out of the last four years have been very wet. We had a huge snowpack. We had rivers that were running in 19th-century fashion, but out to the sea to save the delta smelt.

So, 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.

Gavin Newsom was fiddling, as he’s almost Nero Newsom. And this has been something that is just unimaginable, this system’s breakdown.

And to finish, what we’re seeing in California is a state with 40 million people. And yet the people who run it feel that it should return to a 19^th-century pastoral condition. They are decivilizing the state, and deindustrializing the state, and defarming the state, but they’re not telling the 40 million people that their lifestyles will have to revert back to the 19th century when you had no protection from fire, you didn’t have enough water in California, you didn’t have enough power, you didn’t pump oil.

So, we are deliberately making these decisions not to develop energy, not to develop a timber industry, not to protect the insurance industry, not to protect houses and property.

And we’re doing it in almost a purely nihilistic fashion. And Karen Bass should resign. She came to the airport, back from Africa. She had nothing to say. She was confronted at the airport: “Why were you in Africa? Why did you cut the fire department?”

They cut the fire department by almost $18 million. They gave fire protective equipment to Ukraine’s first responders, and she had nothing to say. She had nothing to say because she couldn’t say anything.

I don’t want to be too pessimistic or bleak tonight, but this is one of the most alarming symptoms of a society gone mad, and if this continues, and if this were to spread to other states, we would become a Third World country if we’re not in parts already.

Representative Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) recently called out Governor Gavin Newsom for what he described as ineffective and inadequate wildfire management. His remarks highlight a growing frustration among Californians.

A Wildfire Crisis with Familiar Patterns

Each wildfire season brings destruction, but the underlying issues causing these fires remain largely unaddressed. Northern California has repeatedly suffered from major blazes in recent years, with the Camp Fire, Dixie Fire, and others burning through millions of acres. Now, fires are spreading through areas in Los Angeles, directly impacting residents in one of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions.

The question hangs heavy: Why does this keep happening? According to LaMalfa, the state’s leadership lacks decisive action to reduce these recurring risks. Critics argue that California’s government has failed to implement strategies that could help mitigate fire dangers, such as improving forest management and brush clearing.

What’s Being Done, or Not Done?

Representative LaMalfa specifically chided Governor Newsom for his public responses to wildfires. He described them as performative—press conferences filled with broad statements and deflected blame, rather than actionable solutions. The sentiment is echoed by many Californians who feel stuck in an endless cycle of devastation followed by inaction.

Forest management and fire prevention strategies are a significant part of the ongoing debate. Proper maintenance of forests and reduction of fuel build-up, such as dry brush, could play a substantial role in lowering the risk of catastrophic fires. Yet, little progress seems to have been made.

The Role of California’s Water Management

Water management is another critical issue tied to California’s response—or lack thereof—to wildfires. LaMalfa argued that water shortages at fire hydrants and limited resources for firefighting are partially due to restrictive policies. He pointed to the state’s failure to create adequate water infrastructure for its growing population and agriculture needs.

Proposed projects like the Sites Reservoir and raising the Shasta Dam’s height have been stalled. This has led to frustration over why water resources continue flowing to the ocean through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, ostensibly to protect the habitat of a species of fish known as the Delta smelt—a species some argue is no longer an existing concern. Critics like LaMalfa believe these policies prioritize environmental symbolism over tangible human needs, leaving the state underprepared to fight fires effectively.

Calls for Leadership and Action

The frustration voiced by LaMalfa reflects a larger sentiment growing across California: a demand for better leadership and more urgency. From stalled water projects to insufficient fire prevention strategies, many feel the state’s current approach leaves Californians vulnerable.

The Representative’s remarks also raise tough questions for Governor Newsom. Can California afford the consequences of inaction any longer? Or will public pressure force a change in how the state manages its forests, water, and fire risk?

Conclusion

California’s wildfire problem isn’t going away. The Santa Ana winds will blow again next year, and with them will come the same threats unless real change happens. Leaders like Representative LaMalfa are sounding the alarm, urging the state government to take meaningful steps to protect its people and land. Whether it’s through better forest management, improved water infrastructure, or proactive fire prevention measures, the state’s leadership faces an undeniable challenge. The time to act is now—before the flames keep disrupting more lives.

Video summary generated with assistance from AI.

Los Angeles County residents were thrown into disarray on Thursday night when they received an erroneous evacuation alert. The warning, intended for those near the Kenneth Fire in Woodland Hills, was mistakenly broadcast to millions across the county, urging them to gather loved ones, pets, and supplies and evacuate their homes.

The panic was palpable as residents, like Thomas Jenkins from Downtown LA, began preparing to leave their homes only to learn moments later that the alert was a mistake. “I immediately jumped up and started packing my things even though I live Downtown,” Jenkins shared with The Post, expressing frustration over the unnecessary alarm. “It was irresponsible, annoying and caused panic for nothing.”

Social media platforms, including X, were flooded with reactions from confused and angry residents. One anonymous user described the ordeal of their neighbor, who was left frantic and in a panic. Another user criticized the handling of the situation as a “complete and utter failure” and highlighted the added stress to those already dealing with the ongoing wildfires.

The evacuation alert was meant for a specific area where the Kenneth Fire was actively burning, but a technical error led to the countywide dissemination. Kevin McGowan, Director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, acknowledged the mishap, stating, “An evacuation order for residents near the Kenneth Fire currently burning in West Hills was mistakenly issued to nearly 10 million County residents along with some residents of neighboring counties.”

County Supervisor Janice Hahn was quick to clarify the error on social media, informing the public that the evacuation warning was mistakenly issued countywide due to a technical glitch. She assured that a correction would follow.

This incident has brought the reliability of emergency alert systems into question, especially given the backdrop of multiple wildfires currently devastating the region. The Palisades Fire, among others, is reported as the most destructive in the county’s history, with containment efforts still at 0%.

Residents and officials are now calling for improvements in communication and emergency management to prevent such errors in the future, as the city continues to battle the natural calamity alongside the fallout from this significant communication blunder.

On Truth Social, he posted:

One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground. It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!

Trump has been hammering Newsom non-stop since the fires started ravaging Los Angeles County, killing at least five people and destroying thousands of buildings and homes. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Trump said:

“It’s very sad because I’ve been trying to get Gavin Newsom to allow water to come – you’d have tremendous water up there, they send it out from the Pacific – because they’re trying to protect a tiny little fish. For the sake of a smelt, they have no water… It’s a mistake of the governor, and you could say, the administration.”

Newsom’s press office offered a feeble excuse:

“LADWP said that because of the high water demand, pump stations at lower elevations did not have enough pressure refill tanks at higher elevations, and the ongoing fire hampered the ability of crews to access the pumps. Broadly speaking, there is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot.”

Democrats across the state have been taking heat. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was lambasted for not answering basic questions from a Sky News reporter when she arrived from her vacation in Africa.

To make matters worse, she botched her press conference by reading “URL” instead of giving the actual URL that residents should visit:

The fires continue to rage across the county with 0% containment as of Wednesday night.

The governor’s office said that such foods are known to carry health risks and that Newsom’s actions are “designed to support affordable, healthy living and reduce the growing impact of chronic illnesses on Californians.”

“The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re going to work with the industry, consumers and experts to crack down on ultra-processed foods, and create a healthier future for every Californian.”

The executive order asks the California Department of Public Health to provide recommendations to the governor’s office “regarding potential action to limit the harms associated with ‘ultra-processed foods’ and food ingredients that pose a health risk to individuals” by April 1, 2025.

It suggested that one of the potential actions could include warning labels for certain foods.

The executive order also asks the California Department of Social Services to provide recommendations regarding “actions that the State can take to reduce the purchase of soda, candy, other ultra-processed foods and/or foods with synthetic food dye or other additives.”

The governor also asked the California Department of Health Care Services to report by April 1 on the feasibility of requiring or encouraging Medi-Cal managed care plans and California hospitals to use their certain funds to “enhance access to fresh, healthy foods,” and “otherwise promote public health at the local level.”

The executive order cited the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest updates to school nutrition standards and also asked the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education to identify by Oct. 1, “areas where California may adopt higher standards for healthy school meals.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for his upcoming administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long criticized ultra-processed foods.

A Nov. 22, 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service noted that there has been “increased attention by researchers and policymakers on the production, labeling, and marketing of ultra-processed foods.” However, there is no definition of what constitutes ultra-processed foods in U.S. laws or regulations.

According to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 73 percent of adults 20 years old and older are overweight or obese, and 38 percent of children and youth between 12 and 19 years old are pre-diabetic.

“The widespread prevalence of nutrition-related chronic health conditions continues to be a major public health issue in the United States,” states the department in the report.

Last September, Newsom signed legislation, Assembly Bill 2316, that bans public schools from serving foods containing six synthetic food dyes: Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3. The law will go into effect at the end of December 2027.

And it doesn’t have to be just one. We might see more variations of “Disease X” pop up to really strike fear in the hearts of the indoctrinated. But Bird Flu is at least the first major play the Globalist Elite Cabal is making in the post-Covid world. We have seen far too many inexplicable reactions and unhinged fearmongering tactics deployed for us to dismiss it. I talked about it on today’s episode of The JD Rucker Show.

Plandemic 2.0?

"Bird Flu 'Emergency' Is Part of the Foundation for the Next Plandemic" pic.twitter.com/pMEk6KBzyS

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) December 20, 2024

Here are the facts from Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge:

Does California’s Bird Flu Emergency Portend the Next Trump-Era Outbreak?

This week California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency over avian influenza, aka Bird Flu.

And while Newsom says the order was simply a precaution after one person in Louisiana was hospitalized with the first severe illness caused by the bird flu in the United States, one has to wonder – WTF…

“This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,” Newsom said in a Wednesday statement.

According to the governor’s office, Bird flu has been found in dairy cows in Southern California – therefore, the emergency is needed to “contain and mitigate the spread of the virus” despite the fact that there have been no reported cases of person-to-person transmission in the state.

What makes this extra-interesting is a tidbit at the end of the new documentary, Thank You Dr. Fauci – notably an infamous op-ed penned by Fauci and his former ‘boss’, NIH head Dr. Francis Collins, in which they suggested that their dangerous research was a “risk worth taking.”

Fauci and Collins penned infamous op-ed for @washingtonpost claiming this dangerous research could cause a pandemic but it was a "Flu Risk Worth Taking" See past from @Bryce_Nickels https://t.co/rq4tfVzQXP and continue this for more…

— Thank You Dr Fauci (@ThankYouDrFauci) December 19, 2024

Which brings us back to California – where the new emergency declaration will empower state and local agencies with additional funding and flexibility in dealing with the virus, that nobody in the state has caught… yet.

As the Epoch Times notes further, While not linked to human bird flu cases, a raw milk dairy based in California issued a voluntary recall several weeks ago after avian influenza was found in a lot.

All of the illnesses in the United States, except for the Louisiana case, have been mild, and the vast majority have been among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows. This year, more than 60 bird flu infections have been reported, with more than half of them in California, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In the Louisiana case, the infected person is older than 65, has underlying medical problems, and has also been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock, according to the CDC.

Last month, Canadian officials reported that a teen in British Columbia was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu. CDC officials did not answer a question about whether the new U.S. case and the case in Canada had any similarities or differences, directing reporters to ask Louisiana officials.

Health officials say bird flu is still mainly an animal health issue and that the risk to the general public remains low. There has been no documented spread of the virus from person to person in the United States or elsewhere.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to be taking actions to regulate gasoline on two fronts — through the legislature, and CARB, which consists of 14 voting members — 12 of whom are appointed by the governor without State Senate confirmation.

“In September of last year, CARB estimated that the change could lift gasoline prices 47 cents a gallon, or $6.4 billion a year,” reported the Los Angeles Times. “Other analysts put the price even higher — 65 cents a gallon, or $8.8 [billion] a year.”

It’s unclear how much the new refinery regulations — which would give the state power to tell refineries when they’re allowed to shut down for maintenance and repairs, and determine how much inventory of gasoline to maintain on hand in case refineries have to be shut down — would cost. However, a broad coalition of Republicans, Democrats, neighboring governors, and even labor unions is opposing the measure, which does seem ready to pass.

The small group of labor organizations that came out against the bill — employed in energy trades — shared a number of safety and even electoral concerns.

“This issue is readily being used against our candidate in those states and beyond,” wrote the coalition regarding the potential direct implications for the swing states of Arizona and Nevada that rely on California for gasoline, and the use of California’s climate positions as a tool to attack Democrats nationally more broadly. “If we cannot be heard and believed on issues that could jeopardize the lives of our members, something is very wrong in CA. Every member who votes for this bill should be prepared to answer if something goes wrong”

Assemblymember Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, said that he believes most legislators actually no longer support the bill but feel strong-armed by the governor.

“The legislature honestly needs to stand up for itself and tell [Newsom] no. I’m guessing the vast majority of legislators want this bill to die,” said Patterson on X. “We shouldn’t do it just because of the Governor’s strange obsession with this weird policy to give bureaucrats power over gasoline production.”

CARB will be voting on the new amendments to the state’s low carbon fuel standard on November 8, just days after the presidential election, on whether or not to adopt new, stricter standards that will make it harder to generate LCFS credits, and require more LCFS credits to be purchased.

As can be seen in CARB data, the LCFS has been so successful that as of April 2024, the most recent data point, the reduction in carbon intensity of the state’s fuel system is already past the goal for 2026. While the widespread availability of LCFS credits has reduced emissions, the rapid scaling of the desired LCFS credit-producing technologies has also reduced the value of individual credits.

Should the new, more strict LCFS requirements be adopted, fewer credits would qualify, and the cost of credits would go up, but much of the billions of dollars invested in existing infrastructure to generate LCFS credits could turn worthless overnight.

California’s gas taxes are already the highest in the nation, with federal, state, and local taxes and fees adding approximately $1.62 per gallon, which is significantly more than the difference between California and national gas prices. If the LCFS is approved, California gasoline could cost approximately $2.09 to $2.27 per gallon more than the national average, a move that could drive more consumers to electric cars, or out of the state entirely.