Tag: wildfires

Second teen accused of sparking NJ wildfire that has torched 15K acres in Pine Barrens

A second teenager is accused of sparking the massive wildfire in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.

A 17 year-old boy was charged with aggravated arson and hindering apprehension Wednesday for helping to ignite the fire that has burned more than 15,000 acres, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. He is not being identified because he is a minor.

Police say the teen helped Joseph Kling, 19, set wooden pallets on fire and that he lied to police about how the fire started.

Kling was arrested last week and charged with aggravated arson. He now faces an additional charge of hindering apprehension.

New Jersey firefighters battled the fierce blaze in the southern part of the state that took days to contain, and was thought to be the largest wildfire in the Garden State in the last 20 years.

A column of smoke was first spotted from the Cedar Bridge Fire Tower in Barnegat Township on April 22, and the fire quickly spread out of control, forcing the evacuation of 5,000 residents, and cutting electricity to 25,000 Garden Staters.

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L.A.’s rebuilding nightmare: Only 4 permits issued after fire destroys 6,000 homes

Nearly three months after wildfires ravaged Pacific Palisades, reducing 6,000 structures to ash, the City of Los Angeles has issued a mere four rebuilding permits — an agonizingly slow pace that has left displaced residents in bureaucratic limbo. Meanwhile, city officials diverted resources to demolish a 20-year-old family treehouse over permit violations, sparking outrage among homeowners who say the government’s priorities are catastrophically misplaced.

As victims of the January inferno struggle to navigate a labyrinth of red tape, builder Alexis Rivas revealed the city lost his pre-approved fire rebuild application — forcing him to restart the entire process. At the same time, Mayor Karen Bass, already grappling with a $1 billion budget deficit, is seeking an additional $1.9 billion state bailout on top of $2.5 billion in fire aid — even as she threatens to label fire-ravaged properties as “nuisances” if owners don’t clear debris quickly.

The glacial pace of recovery has drawn sharp criticism from local leaders, including Councilwoman Traci Park, who called the permit backlog “concerning” and warned of “hundreds of billions in economic losses.”

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Report: California’s Gavin Newsom Refuses to Release Texts, Emails About L.A. Fires

Governor Gavin Newsom is reportedly refusing to release text messages and emails to and from Los Angeles city and county officials regarding the recent wildfires, claiming that they are “exempt” from publication.

As Breitbart News noted earlier this week, Los Angeles Karen Bass has deleted her text messages about the Palisades fire. Bass told local Fox affiliate KTTV-11  in a news conference: “My phone did automatic delete after thirty days.”

The outlet also asked Newsom for his text messages with the mayor and with Los Angeles county, and was denied.

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The Media Can’t Hide This Trump Victory Forever

The Trump administration has shattered expectations with its rapid response to the Los Angeles wildfire cleanup, delivering results in record time and proving critics wrong. Despite accusations of inefficiency and political grandstanding, the administration worked closely with California officials to expedite the recovery effort.

And no one is covering it.

CNN’s Scott Jennings pointed this out Friday night on “Laura Coates Live” on CNN, after Keith Boykin, a Democratic strategist and former Clinton White House aide, made a wild accusation that the Trump administration was responsible for “waste, fraud, and abuse” across various sectors, including water management and foreign aid.

“Not to mention the $400 million going to Elon Musk for his Cybertruck,” Boykin claimed. “This is the waste, fraud, and abuse in America. It’s not because of the federal workers doing their jobs. It’s because Donald Trump is self-dealing.”

The Cybertruck story was debunked last month, by the way. 

But to the larger point that somehow Trump is causing “waste, fraud, and abuse” in America, Jennings destroyed that claim in a matter of seconds by highlighting an achievement that has gotten virtually no coverage in the media.

It turns out that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Trump completed the hazardous materials cleanup in Los Angeles in just 29 days—far ahead of initial projections. “The estimates were it was going to take 18 months,” Jennings pointed out. “But this is the cleanup of the hazardous material that you have to do in order to start rebuilding. Twenty-nine days.”

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Leaked Phone Call: Karen Bass Defends Trip to Ghana, Drops Cryptic Warning Before LA Wildfires

O’Keefe Media Group obtained leaked audio of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass defending her trip to Ghana just three days before the wildfires erupted in Los Angeles in early January.

LA’s Democrat Mayor Karen Bass slashed Fire Department funding by $17.6 million a few months before the fires erupted last month.

January’s blaze was the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history and the city was not prepared to contain the fire because of Democrats like Karen Bass.

Karen Bass was tweeting from Africa as her city burned down.

The LA Mayor was actually in Africa attending the presidential inauguration in Ghana as hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents evacuated and watched their homes burn down.

Fire hydrants ran dry due to Democrat incompetence but Karen Bass saved the day by tweeting from Africa.

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MUST SEE: LA Officials Blame Residents for Wildfires, Admit They Knew The Fires Were Coming and Pacific Palisades Reservoir Was Empty for “A Year” – Official Threatens to Call 911 When Confronted

James O’Keefe’s O’Keefe Media Group has released a new investigative report on Los Angeles officials’ response to the wildfires last month, which raged across LA County. 

Over 12,000 homes were destroyed in the blazes, and at least 29 died.

Due to Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass’s failed leadership and radical leftist policies, which cut $17.6 million from the Fire Department’s budget a few months ago and reduced the city’s water supply available in fire hydrants, firetrucks were forced to use residential hoses to fill up their water tanks. The fire hydrants had run dry, exacerbating the crisis.

The Santa Ynez Reservoir, with a capacity of 117 million gallons, could have played a critical role in providing water pressure to firefighters battling the devastating fire that destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Malibu. However, it had been offline and empty for nearly a year, which incompetent Governor Gavin Newsom called “deeply troubling.”

Alexander Boz, an international relations official with the Los Angeles Mayor’s office, and LA Department of Water and Power project manager Angel Luna told an undercover journalist more about the state’s botched fire response.

Angel Luna acknowledged that the reservoir in Pacific Palisades was empty and taken out of service but claimed that the more than 100 million gallons wouldn’t have made an impact “because of the fact that you lost so many homes.” He further claimed that LA firefighters were “breaking our equipment” when the topic of empty fire hydrants was brought up.

Ignoring the incompetence that led to a lack of available water, Luna dismissed the notion that residents needed water, saying, “Yeah, but we like in a desert” and “It doesn’t rain here.”

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WAIT, WHAT? LA Mayor Karen Bass Investigating Why She Was Allowed to Travel to Africa While Her City Burned

The people of Los Angeles really need to fire Mayor Karen Bass.

As it is now widely known, Mayor Bass was traveling in Africa when the incredibly destructive fires broke out in the city weeks ago. When she finally made it back to LA, she was questioned by a reporter and stood there silently, unable or unwilling to explain herself.

Now, weeks later, she has done a TV interview where she explained that she is launching an investigation into why she was allowed to go on her Africa trip when people knew there was a possibility of fires.

Is this the most absurd thing you have ever heard? Is it close?

FOX News reports:

LA Mayor Bass points fingers when grilled on Africa trip amid botched wildfire response

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has come under intense scrutiny for traveling to Africa last month amid a botched fire response, is deflecting blame on the controversial trip.

“I felt absolutely terrible not being here for my city,” Bass, a Democrat, told a Fox 11 Los Angeles reporter in a recent interview.

“Would I say it was a mistake, absolutely. The idea that I was not present was very painful,” she added, saying that proper “preparation didn’t happen” to notify her ahead of the Ghana trip.

She said she would not have even traveled south to San Diego had she been given the proper “preparation” about the fire danger.

“It didn’t reach that level to me to say ‘Something terrible could happen and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip,’” the Democrat added.

“I think that’s one of the things we need to look at, everything that happened, including that, needs to be examined,” she continued, revealing that there are at least two investigations into the city’s response to the fires.

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‘Scientific Socialism’ Has Come to Pacific Palisades

“You can’t rebuild the same. We have to rebuild with science. We have to build with climate reality in mind,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN last week in an interview about rebuilding the burned-out Pacific Palisades. “We have to look at infrastructure or redundancy systems. Ingress, egress, as it relates to emergency management and planning materials.”

The interview seems to have flown under the radar, but when I caught it this morning, a bit belatedly, my alarm bells went off left and right.

Well, to be honest, they were all on the left.

Whatever happened to Newsom’s promise that he’d eliminate red tape and accelerate the rebuilding of one of L.A.’s nicest and most historic neighborhoods? The former homeowners of Pacific Palisades who were hoping to quickly rebuild from the ashes now understand to their very cores what Otter told Flounder in “Animal House”: “You f***ed up, you trusted us.“

Anyone dumb enough to believe Newsom’s promise to get people rebuilding within six or nine months… well, they probably voted for him. Gooder and harder, California.

What Newsom says needs to be done before lots can be cleared and construction begins looks to me like a huge, centralized process involving an awful lot of well-connected and high-priced “experts” empaneled to redesign Pacific Palisades according to “scientific” principles involving all the techno-babble Newsom went on about in that CNN sit-down. Instead of, you know, letting people build the homes they want in the kind of city they like. 

If the temporary council to name the permanent council has completed its initial studies on who should conduct the actual studies that will someday mandate a Scientifically Perfect Palisades in terms of those “infrastructure or redundancy systems, ingress, egress, as it relates to emergency management and planning materials” has finished finding a list of acceptable names in six months, I’d be shocked. 

If you think it’s expensive and time-consuming just to get permission to add a small deck on the back of a Pacific Palisades home (which it is), just wait until a panel of experts gets together to redesign the entire neighborhood from the ashes up.

None of this boondogglery (hey, I made up another new word!) comes as a surprise to Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™. It wasn’t even two weeks ago that I covered Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s plan to rebuild the Palisades in her own image (shudder), led by philanthropist, “chief recovery officer,” and former LAPD commissioner Steve Soboroff. They’ll hire “an outside consultant to handle a significant rebuilding contract for areas devastated by this month’s Palisades fire,” as the Los Angeles Times put it, and Soboroff promised that “they’re going to represent you and make sure that everybody does exactly what they say they’re going to do.”

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Grenell Calls Out Bass-Appointed L.A. Fire Recovery Chief for $500K 3-Month Salary: ‘Gross, Offensive’

Ric Grenell, President Donald Trump’s Envoy for Special Missions, slammed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s (D) fire “recovery czar” for his large three-month salary of $500,000 paid by charity groups.

Bass announced former L.A. police commissioner Steve Soboroff as the head of the rebuilding efforts following the devastating fires that destroyed homes and businesses and claimed at least 29 lives over a three-week period.

Soboroff will be “paid $500,000 over three months, with funding coming from charitable groups,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Real estate executive Randy Johnson, who worked with Soboroff in developing the ritzy Playa Vista neighborhood in the Westside area of L.A., will receive $250,000 from charity groups over the 90-day period as he helps with the recovery efforts.

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Gavin Newsom to Victims of California Fires: ‘You Can’t Rebuild the Same, Have to Rebuild With Climate Reality in Mind’ 

Last month, comedian Adam Carolla went viral in a video where he talked about how horrible the rebuild process would be for the victims of the California fires because of progressive policies in the state. Carolla said:

So here’s what’s going to happen. All these people who are deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild, and they’re going to get the 28 year old bitch from the Coastal Commission telling them to go fuck off and then they’re going to vote for Trump or whoever’s Trumpian next.

When they start getting the regulation, they’re going to go nuts. And when they start running into the bureaucracy and the red tape, they’re going to start going nuts and they’re going to vote for Rick Caruso next time.

California Governor Gavin Newsom tried to get out in front of this and said that the red tape would be cut and building permits would flow freely in order for these people to rebuild their lives and their homes.

And yet…

Gavin Newsom just appeared on CNN and explained that people ‘can’t rebuild the same.’ Newsom suggests that there is a new reality due to the ‘science’ and climate change, and that all of that has to be taken into account as people rebuild.

In other words, Adam Carolla was right. Newsom and other authorities in California may be handing out building permits, but it’s pretty clear that there will still be red tape and new rules for rebuilding.

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