LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Los Angeles is a mess right now. The city is burning. The roads in Los Angeles County have become a holding pattern with school closures and work-related activities keeping people at home.
Events have been canceled. Homes have been destroyed. Lifetime memories have gone up in flames. Bustling communities have dissipated. Many families are left with nothing but their clothes on their backs.
And yet the wildfires that have caught much of Southern California off guard, continue to rage on. At one point, as many as six fires burned. As of Jan. 12, that number has been reduced to three active fires.
According to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, more than 40,000 (and counting) acres have burned. Over 12,300 structures have been destroyed. Lives have been lost.

Accountability for both the city and county’s lack of preparedness to handle such a historic event has been almost muted. When asked what methods firefighters are using to try to contain the fires, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley punted in her response.
Crowley said those plans had gone awash once Mother Nature entered the picture.
“I can tell you in a wind-driven fire, we have strategies and tactics that we utilize,” Crowley told reporter Dennis J. Freeman. “The main thing..you keep hearing me say this, but that’s a reality in a wind-driven fire is focus on rescue and saving lives and then property.”
Crowley said the winds have fueled the once-in-a-lifetime fires.
“This is [a] very, very dynamic, historical wind event in the city of Los Angeles. So we always will default to doing something like this significant is saving lives and rescue,” Crowley stated. “ That’s exactly what the initial strategy was. Now as the winds die down you can see we’ve had a quick shift in regards to the certain types of resources, especially the air resources, that we can utilize and then we can make that shift and it’s coordinating with ground and air resources. So it’s very dynamic as I’ve been speaking about, but with the winds subsiding just a little bit, again sixty miles an hour gust, even today, is very, very challenging.”
Crowley and other Los Angeles officials have put on a unified front in trying to address the multiple fires causing devastation here in the Southland with daily briefings and was kicked-started with an hour-long press conference at the Hall of Administration building.
The daily pressers under the guise of LAUnited, are meant to provide updates to residents in Los Angeles County on what is happening on the front of combatting the multiple fires that are raging.

The Palisades Fire is only 11 percent contained and has burned more than 23,500 acres (and counting) as of Jan. 12. The Eaton Fire (Pasadena), which started on Jan. 7, has rummaged more than14,00 acres with 27 percent containment. The Hurst Fire (799 acres) is nearly contained.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is in the hot seat with just about everybody. There’s been a lot of criticism of Bass and her office and she has handled the ongoing crisis. At this particular press conference, Bass was peppered with questions about city budget cuts affecting the city’s fire department.
Bass refused to take the bait. Instead of getting entangled in the bureaucracy of what budget items, Bass chose to take the high road and discuss plans to help the city recover from the wildfires.
“Our No. 1 priority right now is to save lives, to protect lives, to save homes,” Bass said. “I’m not here to talk about the status of our budget. If you would like to do that on another occasion, that would be fine. In terms of the reserve funds, I don’t have those concerns right now. And I would say after our first priority, then we will look back at everything that was done to do an evaluation to see what worked and what didn’t work.”
Fire Burning
Right now, if you consider containment of the wildfires, there does not seem to be a lot of anything that’s effectively working in distinguishing the blazes. Two of the biggest fires, the Eaton Canyon fire in Pasadena, California, and the blaze that has caused insufferable damage in Pacific Palisades are the largest.
The effects of the fires stop at the locations where they are burning. The air quality from the fires has impacted much of Los Angeles County. Los Angeles Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell says she wants her constituents to be safe and to take heed to any suggestions given to them by first responders.
“Please listen to what first responders are saying,” Mitchell said. “I appreciate people wanting to go into those areas to provide help. How about, no. There are all kinds of ways in which you can be helpful. Me and my colleagues gave examples today. Sending money to the Red Cross, county organizations, and philanthropic organizations, do that. If you’re not in the impacted areas, please stay out.”

Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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