A huge fire broke out near Pacific Palisades in LA on the 13th of December – it’s really spread out now, burning through about 40,000 acres of land. 28 people have lost their lives and many are still missing. Meanwhile, our new President, Donald Trump, keeps blaming a small fish, threatens to cut Federal aid, and signs executive orders that don’t actually do anything.
The politics is happening as residents experience their insurance companies cancel policies faster than the wildfire is spreading. Meanwhile, fire departments are so underfunded and understaffed that they have to hire incarcerated volunteers to fight the flames.
Trump Keeps Pretending to Care
On 22nd January, President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson along with some other Republicans threatened to withhold federal aid for LA wildfires unless California changed its water policy. This received a massive pushback from GOP’s Californian lawmakers. Republican lawmaker Young Kim called Trump’s politics over wildfire “unacceptable.”
Trump repeated his false claims that the state’s environmental efforts are responsible for the lack of water in urban areas. Trump signed an executive order on his first day titled “Putting People Over Fish” with a mandate to redirect water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California.
It’s a blatant attempt to change the environmental protections of the Smelt, an endangered small fish, vital to California’s ecosystem. He also criticized California for prioritizing fish over the victims of the LA wildfire.
According to water policy expert Tom Holyoke, the executive order is not a viable solution and is only an attempt to signal to his voters that “he’s trying to do something.”
Read More: 3 LA Wildfire Conspiracy Theories That Are as Strange as They Sound
Who Needs Firefighters When You Have Underpaid Prison Inmates?
California has a long history of wildfires with an average of 8000 wildfires every year in the last two decades. Despite all this, California’s efforts were insufficient.
According to Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, the fire department budget was cut short by $18 million in 2025 and is severely underfunded. Moreover, the fire department is 30% understaffed as well. They are having recruitment problems because of year-long fires and low pay.
Their solution: Hire underpaid prisons.
According to an estimate by Mother Jones, about 30% to 40% of the state’s forest firefighters are incarcerated people with most of them in prison for low-level crimes. Washington Post stated that almost 400 inmates were working actively as first respondents.
Take a wild guess on how much these inmates are being paid for jumping in the fire. Well, the best of them can make $1 an hour. But the benefits are amazing: Sandwiches and fruits as food.
But you know who cares about humans the most? The insurance companies.
Insurance Companies Abandon Thousands Amid Fires
Isn’t that just great? We pay premiums to an insurance company every month, just to be “left on read” when we actually need them. According to a CBS report, major insurers, like State Farm, stopped offering P&C insurance to many zip codes in California due to the high risk of wildfire. In 2023, State Farm canceled coverage for 72,000 properties, including those in the Palisades area.
Other private insurers, like Allstate and Farmers Insurance, have dropped many policies or ceased underwriting. Hence, even before the fire, about 1 in 7 homeowners depended on state insurance or FAIR policy. FAIR comes with a low payout and high premium and increases the burden on the state budget. They also have a cap of $3 million, which is not getting you a house in California.
As per policy experts, despite the FAIR insurance, homeowners are certain to foot the bill in the form of higher premiums, and living in California will get more expensive.