What started the California wildfires?

Would reporters please ask that question?

It’s so frustrating; with hours and hours of broadcasting (done quite well), barely a mention has been made of the cause of the devastating fires.

Everyone is busy fighting the fires and perhaps it’s too soon to determine the cause, but you think you could find a reporter who would ask the question. Lightning? Arson? Campfire? Electric power lines?

I found just one. Ivan Penn, the Los Angeles-based New York Times reporter who covers the energy industries and utilities. He wrote: “Power lines, involved in previous California fires, will be under scrutiny again.”

He reminded us that those power lines previously were factors in earlier wildfires:

Power lines and other utility equipment have sparked some of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history, including the deadly Camp Fire in 2018 that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.

The utilities said they had no reports of their equipment involved. But Penn also wrote:

Strong winds did prompt Edison and another utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, to begin cutting power to customers to reduce the risk of fires caused by their equipment. Edison, which had cut power to more than 150,000 customers, said it expected to continue electricity shut-offs through Friday.

Of course, we heard the usual explanation that climate change (i.e. global warming) was responsible. Perhaps, but every weather catastrophe is blamed on climate change. Not quite a truly scientific approach.

But blame is widely placed on far left advocates who defended the practice of allowing brush and grasses—the major fuel for the wildfires—to remain in place because it is “natural.” Spread by howling winds of up to 100 miles an hour, the undergrowth virtually exploded into flame, spreading embers in the high winds.

So many people whose homes were destroyed believe that mis-management of the underbrush was critical. They also blame the failure to improve the infrastructure that would have provided sufficient water to fight the flames.

We shall see. For now, America needs to help those tens of thousands of people who have been left without their homes and communities.