deregulation made the fire as bad as it is
The California water system is a dense web of legal contracts between public and private interests. Bad policy made the fires worse, as the central valley was transformed from an ecological paradise into a dried up scrubland. But the idea that California ever really had regulations to prevent these wildfires is naive.
one of the things deregulated in the LA area was the building of homes in high fire risk areas
Fires are running straight up to the Malibu coastline. High risk areas have been expanding with the repetitive droughts and the large agricultural developments of cash crops. You’ve got buildings going up in flames that were perfectly safe to live in 20 or 30 years ago.
Nothing the California state government had done up to this point was preventing the degradation of the local ecology. They’re just at the end of their rope.
You’ve got buildings on fire that have been standing for half a century. The high winds and brush fires aren’t a result of the building codes. They’re the result of perennial drought and the accumulation of flammable materials in the dust-bowls surrounding LA County.
These articles are where I am basing my opinion from. Note that in the 2nd one, the fires originated in and are either in or on the border of state-designated high risk fire zones.
