We owe to the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus the immortal image of the Emperor Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned.
In actual fact, according to Tacitus, Nero didn’t play the fiddle as flames engulfed the city. He “mounted his domestic stage and sung of the extirpation of Troy, assimilating present calamities to olden disasters,” Tacitus says.
If an instrument he played, it was probably a lyre or cithara—something like a small harp, rather than a fiddle, which was a later invention. Tacitus was also careful to note that Nero’s impromptu musical performance, while certainly in keeping with the rest of his despotic, debauched reign, was only a rumour and not an established fact.
Fiddle or no, I couldn’t help but think of Nero when I read—and wrote—the news today that California Governor Gavin Newsom had decided, in the midst of one of the worst natural disasters in American history, in his own state, to set up a special website to combat “misinformation” about his role in the calamity.
Shouldn’t putting out the fires be the first priority—protecting lives and property—not the governor’s reputation?
Apparently not.
“A lot of misinformation out there,” Newsom Tweeted on Saturday, as he announced the launch of californiafirefacts.com. Newsom wanted to be sure the general public knew he hadn’t cut the state firefighting budget, and actually he’d doubled the number of firefighters, “built the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet” and increased forest management “tenfold” during his tenure.
So there: now you know.
Newsom has been hard-pressed after a series of revelations about his role in signing-off massive cuts to firefighting programs in California. Newsweek reported a few days ago how Newsom approved cuts of over $100 million to seven state-level “firefighting and resilience” programs last year, back in June. The cuts included $28 million from state conservancies that increase resilience to wildfires; $12 million from a project to protect homes from fires; $8 million from wildlife monitoring and research; $4 million from a forestry project that shows homeowners how to manage their land and protect against fires; and $5 million from vegetation-management programs.
It’s not just Newsom, though: it’s pretty much everyone who’s anyone and involved with disaster provision at a high level in California. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was on official business in Ghana for some inexplicable reason on Tuesday night, was trying to close 16 fire stations the week before the conflagration broke out. Nearly 120,000 people have now signed a petition for her to resign, but like so many politicians today she clearly lacks the basic humanity—the shame—to do so.
It’s also been said the city’s water chief Janisse Quiñones was well aware the Santa Ynez reservoir was empty and disconnected, denying the city millions of gallons of water, and that large numbers of hydrants in the city were broken. The reservoir was scheduled for maintenance, apparently.
Estimates now suggest that the fires could cost well upwards of $150 billion, or around 4% of the state’s entire GDP. Those costs are only likely to climb. On Sunday, the Palisades fire had spread to 23,000 acres with only 11% containment. The Easton fire had spread to 14,000 acres, with 27% containment. Only the far smaller Hurst fire, covering around 800 acres, had almost fully been contained, at 89%.
What’s clear, I think, to anyone with eyes to see, is that, however the Los Angeles fires began, they’ve been exacerbated to a considerable degree by official incompetence and mismanagement. Incompetence and mismanagement that stretch back months and even years, maybe decades.
The devastation and the loss of life would not be anywhere near so great—futile though it may be to speculate—had the reservoirs been full and the hydrants working and the brush cleared and all the fire stations open and fully staffed with competent men called Dave and Steve instead of sassy, hamburger-faced butch dykes with pronouns in their Zoom bios.
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