Marking one year since the devastating California Pacific Palisades fire, Congress is investigating the tragedy “thoroughly” as Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks $33 billion in federal funding to rebuild.
“This was not a failure of effort by firefighters,” Patrick Butler, California fire chief and harbor master, testified, “It was a failure of leadership above them.”
The Palisades fire burned in California for nearly all of January 2025. The fire reportedly burned over 23,000 acres and 7,000 structures, leading to the death of 12 people.
Butler is not alone in his frustrations. For months, California residents have called on the state government to do more to allow rebuilding efforts.
Now, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is looking into what has happened in the year after the fires.
“We’ve gotten, according to staff, 34,000 pages of documents,” Johnson said of the subcommittee’s efforts. “So, we’ll start targeting our requests. And this is just to put everybody on notice.”
“We intend to investigate this thoroughly. We expect transparency, and if necessary, we will compel testimony and compel document production,” said Johnson.
“When the fire broke out, the fire hydrants were dry. How in God’s green earth could that happen?” asked Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
“It wasn’t firefighters who did that. The reservoirs were empty, the mayor was missing action,” said Scott, referring to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass being on vacation in Ghana, Africa, when the fires broke out.
Newsom has demanded that the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency grant California $33.9 billion in disaster recovery.
Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., echoed these demands during the hearing.
“Despite numerous requests from California’s congressional delegation, the administration has yet to transmit to Congress the state request for $33 billion in a supplemental appropriation for wildlife recovery,” Blumenthal stated.
“California is requesting $33 billion of after-action support because of the utter incompetence and failure of LA and California elected officials,” responded Johnson, “$33 billion that should not be needed.”
“You can’t cure incompetence with money, unless you remove the incompetence,” declared Johnson, “unless you expose it, and make sure those individuals who weren’t qualified, who are incompetent, are no longer serving those roles.”
Johnson told the witnesses his main goal for this investigation is to expose what happened. He wants to “name names.”
