The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.
2. La City defunded fire department removing 100 fire trucks from service due to maintenance. (City Incompetence)
3 Severe fire warnings reported days in advance of the fire. Rather than take precautions and position fire trucks and equipment etc as was done in the past, the Mayor flew off to Ghana. (City Incompetence, Fire Department incompetence (but partly because of cut budget)
4. Forest maintenance has been stopped. (State incompetence)
Competent management is needed or even worse can be expected in future.
I don't know about the other three offhand, but it's absurd to claim that state and local governments in California are somehow not taking fire risk seriously. Do you seriously think that the state that has annual wildfire season just happens to be "incompetent" when it comes to preparing for wildfires?
Because Santa Ynez was empty (for the past year), water was supplied from downhill water sources and the pressure needed dropped off to the point there was no longer any water out of the hydrants.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Ang...
[1] https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2024/24-1600_rpt_bfc_12...
Look, it's known that reservoir was empty, but it's a covered reservoir. You're looking at the the _cover_. That image tells you nothing about the state of the reservoir at the time.
> primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants
was 3x 1M gallon water tanks. Hydrants were gravity fed until the tanks ran out (8-15 hours into the firefight), at which point water tankers supplied responding companies.