Firefighters say that L.A.’s hellacious firestorm started at 10:30 Tuesday morning in Topanga Canyon. This paradise is — was? — filled with bespoke homes and came with built-in privacy — a rare commodity. People have been uprooted, their family memories are in ashes, and they have to find a place to sleep tonight. Evacuated entertainment stars such as James Woods, Ben Affleck, Eugene Levy, and more likely haven’t had a chance to ask this secondary question: What started this fire?
First, any number of things could have started the fire that turned into a conflagration that destroyed untold numbers of homes and scorched at least 3,000 acres — and counting — of prime Los Angeles area real estate. Someone could have flicked a cigarette butt out the window. Car exhaust could have sparked dry brush on the side of the road. Arsonists have been known to purposely set fires in Southern California.
Or maybe it was the same thing that started fires in the past: homeless encampments.
In 2021, Topanga Canyon residents were so concerned with homeless encampments and fire danger that they ostensibly “banned” them. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to ban homeless camps because cooking dinner or drugs outside in dry brush is a really dumb idea.
Film producer and conservative Mike Cernovich predicts that before the embers are put out of the Palisades fire, a Hollywood “sh*tlib” will blame it not on homeless encampments or an arsonist but on climate change.
Hellbound and Down 
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