There wasn’t anyway, regardless of who was in charge, of getting that fire under control control, and stopping it. Decades of Forest management control lead to the problem. Throw in the drought and you had the perfect storm., then the Santa Anna winds show up.
No amount of water or anything that could possibly be done by the fire department of the National Guard or anyone else would’ve been able to stop what’s happened and it’s going to have to burn itself out before it ends.
That means it’s just going to be complete devastation. It will take decades for the area to recover and regrow. So you’re not gonna have a while for a very long time there. The question is where will the money come to rebuild if there are a lot of people whose insurance policies were canceled they’re not gonna be rebuilding unless the federal government steps in and pick up the tab for about $100 billion to make everybody whole again. The rebuilding and everything else is way beyond what the insurance companies could’ve done because for the most part probably would’ve bankrupt it all of them they cannot absorb those kind of losses. California like Florida and a few other states are going to have to find a way to develop a new homeowners fund for people to buy into maybe in addition to regular insurance. This problem is going to be ongoing for a long time.
You make me wonder whether homeowners in California whose insurance companies have canceled their policies might not have a cause of action as a class against the State for creating conditions where under the insurance companies have decided to leave their policyholders in the lurch. Perhaps a suit against the State Insurance Commissioner’s Office, as it seems that the intercessory role of that Office has not been sufficiently exercised in favor of policy holders, which is to say it has been overly against insurers and that pressure has led directly to their exodus from the California Homeowner’s Insurance market.