Debate over Los Angeles fires. Land management or climate change the cause? It's both.

I'll admit that land management might have the upper hand, but climate change may be a close second in the debate over why the fires were so bad.

I call myself a liberal, but it seems like most liberals have forgotten a good talking point for environmentalism that I learned in my 1970s city planning classes from college.

I learned that sprawl is bad. Building at the urban / rural fringe is problematic; especially if homes are spread out among fire prone natural landscapes. Good city planning tends to favor more compact development within "urban growth areas" versus so much encroachment into rural areas.

If houses are sprawling out into nature, it's likely that populism and anti government regulation, will take the side of the houses meaning a win for removing natural vegetation if the vegetation is fire prone. Populism will want to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot," as the old song goes; especially an empty parking lot as a fire break. Of course a full parking lot could mean car fires spreading from gas tank to gas tank. Good firebreaks are needed around development.

Still, climate change is an issue as the environment is likely to become dryer, do to persistence of drought as well as becoming warmer. Longer fire seasons in the forests and scrub lands, for instance.
Image I found on the net