When Fire Risk Isn’t Theoretical, Leadership Can’t Be Either

A new wedge issue is emerging in Los Angeles City Council races, but it isn’t about ideology, partisanship, or political branding. It’s about fire, and whether City Hall is willing to act before catastrophe strikes.

As reported in “A New Wedge Issue Appears in L.A. City Council Races,” wildfire risk, encampments, and enforcement in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones are becoming a defining fault line in local politics. That framing may be useful for campaign strategists, but for residents living near hillsides, canyons, and open space, this is not a theoretical debate or an electoral talking point. It is an immediate, visible, and potentially deadly reality.

Los Angeles does not have the luxury of debating wildfire risk in the abstract.

For residents living near hillsides, canyons, and open space, particularly in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, the threat is immediate, visible, and deadly. Dry brush, extreme heat, and encampments with open flames, fuel canisters, and improvised electrical wiring are not hypothetical risks. They are a known and documented danger.

That is why the recent Los Angeles City Council vote to allow city officials to clear hazardous materials and encampments from hillside properties, even when access to private land is required, matters far beyond the procedural debate playing out at City Hall.

This is not about ideology. It is about whether we are serious about preventing the next catastrophic fire.

Critics of the proposal argue that the city needs clearer definitions, stronger guardrails, and greater legal clarity before acting. Those concerns are worth addressing, but they cannot become a permanent excuse for inaction. When we know conditions exist that materially increase wildfire risk, the government has an obligation to intervene before tragedy strikes, not after.

Los Angeles has learned this lesson the hard way.

We have seen what happens when warnings are ignored, when hazards are tolerated, and when enforcement is delayed until it is too late. Fires do not respect political philosophies. They do not pause for legal memos. They move fast, they spread unpredictably, and they devastate entire communities in minutes.

This is why I have consistently supported responsible enforcement of public safety laws, including Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 41.18. When paired with outreach and services, enforcement is not cruelty; it is accountability. It is how we keep schools, parks, libraries, and neighborhoods safe while still treating people experiencing homelessness with dignity.

The same principle applies here.

Allowing hazardous conditions to persist in fire-prone areas is not compassion. It is negligence toward residents, toward first responders, and toward the unhoused individuals who are often placed in the most dangerous conditions of all.

Some worry that clearing encampments near hillsides will simply “move people along.” That is a legitimate concern if enforcement happens in isolation. But that is not an argument against action; it is an argument for doing the job properly. Fire prevention, outreach, housing placement, and public safety must work together. One cannot substitute for the other.

What is not acceptable is paralysis.

Leadership requires the ability to say two things at once: we must reduce wildfire risk aggressively, and we must do so humanely and lawfully. Those goals are not in conflict. In fact, they depend on each other.

Voters are right to pay attention to how their elected officials handle this issue. Not because it is a “wedge,” but because it reveals something fundamental about governing philosophy. Do we act when risk is clear, or do we wait until disaster forces our hand?

Los Angeles cannot afford to wait.

Preventing the next wildfire will require difficult decisions, clear authority, and the courage to act before the smoke is in the air. That is not politics. That is the basic responsibility of public service.

And it is one I will always be willing to stand behind.