By Tom Carter
Jan 10, 2024
The multiple fires currently raging out of control in Los Angeles, California, represent a catastrophe of staggering proportions. Communities, the size of small cities in themselves, have been erased from the map as numerous separate fires, accelerated by high winds and dry conditions, have rapidly overwhelmed what inadequate or nonexistent countermeasures were in place.
Los Angeles, the seat of the American entertainment industry, is a city known for creating illusions. But in just a matter of days, many of those illusions went up in flames, revealing the absolutely barbarous state of social relations in contemporary America and the total inability of capitalism to confront any social problem: from climate change to urban planning to basic water management. Like the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which inspired Voltaire’s Candide, the Los Angeles fires will have far-reaching effects on popular consciousness.
Firefighters—a third of whom are estimated to be unfree convict laborers making as little as between 16 and 74 cents per hour—continue to risk their health and lives to fight the flames, but their efforts have been handicapped by insufficient numbers and lack of water pressure in the hydrants.
Approximately 179,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes so far, with scarce places for them to shelter. Ten deaths have been confirmed, but many more victims remain to be discovered among the ashes. Countless families have lost pets, household belongings and cherished keepsakes. Millions will be exposed to the toxic pall of smoke that is descending over the area, with incalculable health consequences for years to come.
The worst of the fires broke out Tuesday. The Palisades Fire rapidly consumed more than 17,200 acres and counting, including virtually the entire coastal Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which had a population of over 23,000. The Eaton Fire has consumed 10,600 acres, including much of the community of Altadena. The Hurst fire in the enclave of San Fernando consumed 671 acres.
On Wednesday, two more fires broke out: the Lidia Fire, which consumed 348 acres, and the Sunset Fire, which consumed 43. On Thursday, the Kenneth Fire began, rapidly spreading to 960 acres. Both the massive Palisades and Eaton fires are zero percent contained as of this writing. None of the other separate fires are fully contained and the number of acres they cover is constantly changing. While termed “wildfires” in some reports, the flames have reached deep into urban areas, destroying historic buildings, schools, monuments and churches alongside whole residential neighborhoods.
Continue reading at https://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-los-angeles-fire-disaster-and-the-necessity-of-socialist-planning/
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