LOS ANGELES — Over the last week, catastrophic fires have engulfed large areas of Los Angeles County. As of Jan. 14, at least 25 people have been killed and nearly 180,000 forced from their homes. Intense Santa Ana winds continue to fuel the flames. Since the early stages of the Palisades fire Jan. 7, more than 10,000 homes have burned down, as well as schools, businesses and other structures.
At least five major fires have burned, with others popping up over a 45-square-mile area — from the Palisades fire, which includes more well-to-do areas along the coast, to the Eaton fire in more working-class areas of Altadena and Pasadena. Over 350,000 power company customers were without electricity, including 200,000 in Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the country.
Authorities knew well ahead of time that dry and nearly hurricane force winds would hit the county, which has had miniscule amounts of rain since last May. The lack of advance organization for evacuations and other preparatory steps forced people to leave their homes in a mad rush as the fires rapidly spread.
This led to gridlock. Drivers were told by the police to abandon their cars and head for the beach on foot. Emergency crews then bulldozed the vehicles aside so fire trucks could get through.
The destruction wrought by the Los Angeles fires is not mostly a result of little or no rain, low humidity levels and high winds. The culprit is the disregard by local government in building infrastructure to deal with such natural disasters, as well as to organize people to be prepared to evacuate if necessary. Or even more importantly, to work together to deal with emergencies that are becoming more frequent.
The water systems here are not designed to fight fires. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that in advance of the fire and high winds, it had filled all available water tanks in the city, including three 1-million-gallon tanks in the Palisades area. These were rapidly exhausted.
And the Santa Ynez Reservoir, part of the Los Angeles water supply system, had been taken offline and was empty when the firestorm exploded.
“There must be some things we can do to try to mitigate this. Please,” Sanah Chung, a Pacific Palisades resident, told Reuters while hosing down hedges and trees in his front yard, “Fire hydrants are empty. Firefighters are doing everything they can, but we need to do things more proactively before.”
“Under capitalism natural disasters turn into social disasters. While everyone is affected, working people, who already face high prices and wages that don’t keep up, face catastrophic consequences for the ability of their families to survive,” Laura Garza, organizer of the Los Angeles branch of the Socialist Workers Party and the party’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 2024, told the Militant.
“We need to fight for a federally funded crash program to put people to work at union-scale wages clearing the debris, rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals and crucial infrastructure needed to battle future disasters like this,” she said. “This fight will require organizing and acting independently of the capitalist parties — the Democrats and Republicans. We need to build a party of labor to take political power.”
Working-class solidarity
Despite the disdain for preparation by local and county government, working people have come forward to offer solidarity.

On Jan. 13, worker-correspondents for the Militant joined hundreds of others in a parking lot at the Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia, a short distance from the Eaton fire. This is a staging area for people to bring donations of all kinds and for those affected by the fire to pick them up. Many sorted through material for what they needed. A veritable army of volunteers was helping to organize and distribute the donated goods. A local Sikh group made food and was distributing it to all comers.
Winnie Chong rented an apartment in Altadena that was destroyed in the fire. “When the fire came, I left. I also had to help my husband, who is disabled,” she told a Militant volunteer. “I’m glad you have a newspaper to tell people about this. We need everyone to hold Gavin Newsom and the mayor responsible. We need to demand answers about how this happened.”
The capitalist government at all levels set things up for disaster. Gov. Newsom had cut state funds for fire prevention and forest management by $100 million months earlier. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had proposed a budget plan for 2024-25 that included a reduction in spending for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In May the City Council reduced the proposed spending cuts to $17 million, down from the original proposal of $23 million.
At the donation center, Jessica Lopez, 23, told the Militant that five members of her family had to evacuate their apartment in Pasadena. “We’re staying with family in L.A.,” she said. The response at the racetrack “shows how much people care and are actually there for each other.” Her aunt, Nancy Lopez, added, “We might be moving to Vegas or Mexico, because the cost of living is cheaper, especially in Mexico.”
Christopher Castillions, a firefighter paramedic currently on medical leave with a knee injury, told the Militant, “I can’t be out there now with my brothers fighting the fires so I felt this was the best way to help the community.” He was distributing cloth bags that people could use to pack up what they collected.
“I came because there’s a lot of chaos in lives now,” Raven Bowens, a member of the Screen Actors Guild on the show “Days of Our Lives,” said. “I love L.A. and wanted to help people.”
Help has come from all over. California has deployed more than 900 specially trained prison inmates to combat the deadly fires. Other firefighters have come from nearby states, and from Mexico, Canada and other countries.
‘No one left on their own’ in Cuba
Unlike in the U.S., where the capitalist rulers and their government leave working people to fend for themselves, in Cuba the government leads civil defense committees, mass organizations and the army to make sure no one is left on their own when natural disasters strike, and to rebuild afterward. This is a conquest of Cuba’s socialist revolution.
Hurricanes, as well as other natural disasters, are frequent occurrences in the Caribbean. The Cuban government sends buses to evacuate people from the most exposed areas and sets up well-stocked shelters in schools and other public buildings. Local civil defense committee members go door to door to make sure residents are prepared.
Despite serious shortages, largely a product of Washington’s punishing 60-year-long economic war on the Cuban people, the Cuban government and mass organizations work to assure the shelters have food, medical care and even staff to organize activities for children.