"LOS ANGELES -- Barry Josephson enjoyed a peaceful life in his hilltop home in the Pacific Palisades, save for one constant worry: the highly flammable brush that clogged the surrounding government-owned land.
"We all take a risk living here," the producer of films including "Enchanted" said. "But that land should be maintained."
There have been at least five fires in the area since Josephson moved there eight years ago. Most were fueled by brush, which consists of drought-resistant shrubs that burn easily and intensely.
Impatient with government bureaucracy, including a $150 fee for permission to remove brush from state parkland, some of Josephson's neighbors cleared it on their own.
They might have saved some of their homes. Of 81 houses in the vicinity, Josephson said 54 are still standing amid the wreckage of this month's Palisades fire, including his. It is particularly remarkable because investigators believe the blaze could have started a few hundred feet away, around a popular hiking destination known as Skull Rock.
Angelenos are asking why so much flammable material was allowed to build up around now-devastated communities. It was particularly dangerous this winter, as vegetation grew quickly following last year's record rains and dried out in a subsequent drought.
Fire experts said no amount of brush clearing could have stopped flying embers driven by hurricane-strength winds from igniting many buildings that are now rubble and ash.
But better maintenance of the wild lands could have slowed the fires' growth. And the lack of preventive work despite pleas from residents and warnings from people inside the government demonstrate how little officials did ahead of a foreseeable disaster.
The delays were caused by a slow-moving tangle of government agencies that own or regulate Los Angeles's undeveloped land and are tasked with mitigating wildfire risks, according to a review of public records and interviews by The Wall Street Journal.
In the Palisades, the city and county of Los Angeles, the state parks department, the California Coastal Commission, and the National Park Service all have a say in what happens on land surrounding residential areas.
They don't always work well together. In several instances, the Los Angeles Fire Department has issued citations to the state parks department for not clearing vegetation from its property, according to records of community meetings and a person with knowledge of the matter.
A spokesman for California State Parks said the department wasn't aware of any recent brush clearance violations in the Palisades area.
L.A. has tough vegetation-management rules, requiring property owners in hazardous zones to clear brush within 200 feet of a structure and 10 feet of roads or combustible fences. City officials frequently cite owners for failure to clear brush and send crews to clear the land of those who fail to comply, with the owners responsible for the cost.
But Palisades residents have long complained local and state governments don't follow the same rules on their nearby land.
"They neglect it," said Bart Young, president of a Palisades neighborhood group that raised $140,000 to fund its own brush cleanup.
Young said he lost his home in the fire, but about 250 of the 300 houses in his immediate neighborhood survived. "It was a good investment on our part," he said of the brush clearance.
Meeting minutes of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, a volunteer group, are filled with discussions of brush-clearance issues.
At a 2023 meeting, a representative from California State Parks said that, for environmental reasons, the state doesn't typically remove brush. But any concerned citizen, he said, could remove dry vegetation close to their own property after obtaining a permit.
The permit application requires property owners to schedule a visit by a state parks representative, takes up to eight weeks to be processed and costs $150.
The spokesman said the parks department takes wildfire preparation seriously and "the notion that State Parks could have done more in this instance to save homes from the recent firestorms is inaccurate."
After the 2018 Woolsey Fire, Los Angeles County commissioned a report with ideas to reduce future wildfire risk.
The report was issued in 2020. Many of its recommendations still haven't been implemented.
Consultants recommended that the county of 10 million people limit development in areas at high risk of wildfires and bolster brush-management requirements for new buildings.
It also said the county should develop "Community Wildfire Protection Plans" for unincorporated areas.
Such plans help identify areas that need brush cleared and who is responsible for the work.
Molly Mowery, a consultant who worked on the Los Angeles County report, said she was surprised to find it didn't already have community wildfire plans. "Given the fire history in that area, it was more like, 'What was keeping them from having these in the first place?'" she said." [1]
1. U.S. News: Bureaucratic Tangle Made It Harder to Clear Brush. Carlton, Jim; Maremont, Mark; Frosch, Dan. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 21 Jan 2025: A9.
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