California eco-bureaucrats halted a Pacific Palisades fire safety project cuz it endangered a shrub

In 2019 LA's all-powerful Department of Water and Power (LADWP) began replacing nearly 100-year-old power line poles cutting through Topanga State Park.  The old power poles were wood and far shorter than the tall steel towers used today.

Within days that project was halted by conservationists, who complained that plants on the federal "endangered plant" list (Braunton’s milkvetch, if you're curious) were being trampled.

Now, there's no evidence that the old, shorter wooden power poles sparked any fire, but there's also noo evidence that California's DWP rulers did an analysis of the risk of such fires compared to the demands of the wokiez that the project be stopped.  And the sum of thousands of such decisions gave LA the result you see below:

 

Now: If a city's residents would rather prioritize a plant on the feds' endangered list at the risk of fires, that's their choice.  But LA's Democrat rulers didn't give 'em that choice.  Instead the rulers listened to the wokiez, which produced the inevitable result you see above.

Now: were the Santa Ana winds strong?  Sure.  Were they stronger than usual?  No.  And they arrived at the usual time of year.  The huge fire was inevitable; it was just a question of when.