LOS ANGELES — The heavy smell of smoke, darkened skies in the daytime and spreading ash have receded in many neighborhoods here, though the closer you are to the ongoing fires it is still dangerous to breathe the air. More people are wearing COVID-period masks again. People try to maneuver through cop and National Guard checkpoints to sift through what remains of their property.
The one real sign of hope is the thousands of volunteers who have set up makeshift aid sites or food giveaways at street corners, in parking lots, in churches and other places near fire-damaged areas. Hundreds of pizza shop owners and volunteer drivers have given out thousands of pizzas.
The Democratic Party politicians who dominate in California, from Gov. Gavin Newsom to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the heads of related government agencies, power utility bosses, cops and others are all pointing fingers at each other for the failure to maintain and then to deploy the resources needed to prevent or contain the fires.
The prospect of finding new housing without being gouged by profit-hungry realtors confronts thousands of fire victims, part of the deepening social crises the fires have both created and exacerbated. The death toll has reached 28 and many people remain unaccounted for. Many in western Altadena, a historically Black area, report they didn’t receive notice of danger or evacuation warnings until the flames of the Eaton fire raged around them. Seventeen of the deaths occurred there.
Local papers remind people who’ve lost their homes that if they had a mortgage, they will still have to pay it all off. You may get a one-year reprieve, but you’ve got to pay. And even if you can collect insurance and rebuild, you’ve got to rent somewhere until it’s done.
Even before the fires, the California Housing Partnership reported renters in Los Angeles County needed to earn at least $48.04 an hour — 2.9 times the minimum wage here — to afford the average monthly rent of $2,498. But in today’s crush, rents are escalating, despite the fact it’s illegal for landlords to raise rents more than 10%.
David Wellington, an African American FedEx worker, spoke to this Militant worker-correspondent Jan. 16. He was on his way to work from the Pasadena Convention Center shelter where he’s staying since his home in Altadena burned down. “The insurance company says they have to see the place and verify it burned,” he said, but no one is allowed up there now. So, he’s stuck staying in the shelter.
A total of 15,000 homes, businesses and schools have been destroyed by the fires.
Volunteers by the thousands

Meanwhile, the continuing outpouring of volunteers shows the capacity of working people to transform themselves and step into the breach. At a pop-up site behind Club 1881, a Pasadena bar, Daisy Barajas, her companion Jose, and their 9-year-old daughter spoke with the Militant Jan. 19. Daisy said she, her daughter and her parents had lived in a rented house in Altadena that burned to the ground, as did the supermarket where she worked. She is living with her companion and has found temporary housing for her parents at a motel until Feb. 16.
This volunteer site was organized by Dann Salinas, a construction site project manager. “We have clothes, shoes, kitchen supplies, toys and bedding. Even some hot dogs,” he said, brought by neighbors and friends. Helping Salinas was Tony Duran, an engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad. “Dann is my compadre,” Duran said. “He grew up here and reached out to me. I’m glad to help.”
Thousands of people are doing the same thing, dropping off supplies, bringing hot meals, setting up food trucks and more. Many of the volunteers met at a huge donation center set up in the parking lot of the Santa Anita Racetrack the week after the fires started. Regardless of the continuing needs, city officials announced Jan. 16 that this site would be shut down.
The Pasadena Community Job Center, organized by National Day Laborer Organizing Network, has opened its doors to volunteers.

“There were hundreds of volunteers, up to 700, over the weekend. We ask what families need, then they can pick it up,” Walter Batres, president of the Guatemalan Migrant Network, told the Militant at the center. He is a skilled construction worker who lives in Altadena. Batres pointed to the line of people waiting to pick up donated items.
Ervin Mancilla, 70, a construction worker, is an activist with the day laborer network and a musician who is part of the Jornaleros del Norte (Day laborers of the North) band. He was rehearsing the day the fires started, he said. The next morning big trees that had come down were blocking the road. Workers from the center came and cut the trees up and cleared the street.
Capitalist government responsible
Facing forecasts of more extreme Santa Ana winds with high fire risks beginning Jan. 20, the city finally took steps it had failed to do before the fires started two weeks earlier. They prepositioned firefighters in vulnerable areas, staffed extra engines and had the outgoing shift of 1,000 firefighters remain on duty. These are steps authorities had routinely taken in past years.
It is clear to millions that the disaster here was the result of many years of government neglect to build and maintain needed infrastructure and adequate firefighting capacity. What working people have suffered is a result of the for-profit operation of capitalism and the disdain of its political defenders.
At a Fire Commission meeting a month earlier, before the fires broke out, the president of the firefighters union and others spoke out, calling for more resources and citing dangerous shortages. They noted that trucks sit unrepaired because the Los Angeles Fire Department is understaffed, including cuts to mechanics. The department has less than one firefighter for every 1,000 residents. Many major cities have staffing ratios closer to two firefighters per 1,000.
Freddy Escobar, president of the firefighters union, told CNN, “This isn’t about one budget cycle. It’s not about a single mayor. We have been speaking about it for years now. It’s sad it’s taken this natural disaster and tragedy to highlight what we have been saying for decades.”