California’s Fire Catastrophe Is Largely a Result of Bad Government Policies
In the weeks, months, and years to come, there will be plenty of blame to share for the lapses that let the California wildfires of 2025 get so out of hand, costing lives and tens of billions of dollars. The fact that I wrote “of 2025” to distinguish these fires from other outbreaks should make it clear that these fires are anything but unprecedented, meaning that they should have been anticipated and their causes addressed. That they weren’t points to a massive failure in policy.
As I write on Sunday, January 12, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley is pointing fingers at Mayor Karen Bass for stripping the department of key resources and funding, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vows to find out the reason fire hydrants went dry during efforts to battle the devastating blazes, and everybody wants to know why a major reservoir in Pacific Palisades was empty and offline for a year. When faced with hard questions, state and local officials including Bass and Newsom are practicing more impressive dodging and weaving than we saw during the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul fight.
But that dodging and weaving can’t erase the serious missteps that led to this very predictable moment.
Regulatory Delays with Devastating Consequences
“Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits,” Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. “In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it’s too late.”
For example, as I’ve written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn’t deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject—presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
Wasted Water
“From water rules that cause shortages to red tape that fuels extreme wildfires, state and federal policies have deepened California’s most pressing environmental challenges,” Regan wrote in 2023. “As a result, the Golden State now confronts the consequences of these choices, with destructive effects on its natural landscapes, its
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