Another year, the same old 'whoops' | Editor's notes

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.chicoer.com/2021/08/08/another-year-the-same-old-whoops-
editors-notes/

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

If this situation wasn’t so sickening, so heartbreaking, so horrific and
gut-wrenching awful, you wouldn’t know rather to laugh or cry. But some
comedy of errors are so bad and so redundant, there’s nothing comic-like
about them — despite the combined Keystone Cops-like efforts of those who
keep this sick show alive.

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

Remember that line? It’s from an old pizza commercial on TV. The gag was,
these two clownish oafs were making pizza and kept “accidentally” spilling
more stuff into the mix, resulting in a bigger and thus more filling pie.

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

If they remade that commercial today, the people making the mess that’s
churning our stomachs would be representing PG&E and the state of
California and a few other choice entities, and the only thing that’s
cooking is damn near every square inch of northern California.

Again. And again. Year after year after year, and the ingredients they’re
throwing into the mix might as well be napalm and gasoline.

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

Look, there goes another equipment fail — PG&E just started another fire!
And boy, look at that blaze take off, thanks to decades of no forest
management, extra-dry conditions and nobody giving a damn, unless it
looked like a mighty fine day to swoop into town for a photo op.

Speaking of which, Governor Newsom came up to a remote stretch of Glenn
County on Wednesday, where he talked about climate change and the August
Fire (which has been out since last fall). As of this writing, he hasn’t
visited the 26-day-old Dixie Fire, which is near the half-million-acre
mark and shows little signs of slowing down — especially after blasting
into Greenville that very night, leaving behind little but charred remains
of buildings and the crushed lives of innocent people with generations of
mountain blood in their veins.

500,000 acres. It sounds like a mighty poor way to describe a fire these
days. Remember when a 5,000 acre fire was considered huge? Or 20,000
acres? Hell, these days, that’s barely an adequate description of one
day’s worth of fire growth.

If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to think the Dixie Fire has
already covered more square miles than we’ll ever see from the floundering
$100 billion bullet train, which continues to suck money out of taxpayers’
pockets with the same velocity as those wild embers flying around Plumas
County. So we don’t have money to keep the Susanville prison (and its
inmate firefighting program) open — but just think of how fast we’re going
to be able to get from Merced to Fresno!

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

It’s beyond sad how the self-proclaimed “most advanced state in the
nation” cannot get a grip on this. It has spun completely out of control
and, as we noted in our “What’s left to burn?” story a few days back, we
are a long, long way from being out of this sick series of horror shows —
most of which continue to star the same bad actors.

Camp Fire? Whoops, PG&E equipment started it. The Dixie Fire, which
started very close to the same spot as the Camp Fire, almost three years
later, despite repeated assurances of safety improvements? “Uh, yeah,
whoops, we might have started that one too.” And then the Fly Fire, which
ended up merging with the Dixie Fire? “Yep. Sorry. That might be our bad
too. Clumsy me!”

And if you think the point of this column is to lay all of the blame on
PG&E, you’re wrong. They barely qualify as a co-star in this inept lineup
of overpaid charlatans.

For example, we’ve got a state led by a guy apparently more concerned with
sagging poll numbers and a mounting recall election than anything having
to do with fire protection, an effort he admitted he “accidentally”
overstated by almost 700 percent recently. And hey, how about that
decision to close the prison in Susanville earlier this year, which killed
off the inmate firefighting program? Think those well-trained and
experienced men might have been a welcome addition to our overwhelmed
forces when, say, the flames were overrunning Greenville almost as rapidly
as they’d devoured Paradise three years earlier?

“Whoops! Clumsy me!”

What about that undergrowth? All those dangerous trees next to power
lines, on public lands and elsewhere? Well, guess what — have you tried to
cut down a tree in this state lately? There’s so much environmental red
tape suffocating most common-sense clean-up efforts, you couldn’t cut
through it with a king-sized Husqvarna and a 24-inch-bar.

And let’s not forget who actually owns most of the forest land in our
state: the federal government. But they’re so busy scrambling to cover a
mishandled pandemic and a still-wide-open southern border — “Come on in!
No mask required. Whoops! Clumsy me!” — you have to wonder if anyone other
than Doug LaMalfa could actually find Butte or Plumas County on a map.

But other than our congressman, who has asked for federal help to fight
these fires, none of these other people are ever going to breathe this
smoke or walk across these charred lands. It’s apparently little more to
them than another political football, a reason to point fingers and send
sarcastic staff-written tweets, or (especially) a chance to blame
everything on the person on the other side of the aisle. Clumsy you!

In short, we’ve been led into a burning chasm of hell-like intensity by
people who offer nothing but election-year promises that they cannot keep,
because they have no idea how to actually solve any of this, and refuse to
listen to any of the people who do.

And let’s talk about climate change. It’s a very popular pastime right now
for people on one side of the aisle to point fingers at the other and say
“These science deniers refuse to do anything about climate change and
that’s why the fires are out of control and the lakes are so low!” But
here’s the thing: the people who are doing the finger-pointing — that
would be the Democrats — have ALL of the power in this state. If they
wanted to craft and enforce the strictest climate change laws in the
history of the planet today, there is absolutely nothing James Gallagher
or Jim Nielsen could do to stop them. The Republican legislators in this
state have no power. Zero. Zilch. Nada. To blame climate change and thus
the fires on them is … well, typical.

The truth is, many of these people in power are frauds. All they care
about is fundraising and getting re-elected; period. And we’re the ones
paying the price, figuratively and literally. Clumsy me? More like Stupid
Us.

Finally — let’s go back to the first day of the Dixie Fire. Cal Fire,
being fully aware of the location and potential for a big spread, called
for air attacks. But with the fire still in the single-digit acre stage,
they had to ground the air attack that first day — and again the next
morning — because somebody was flying drones in the area. Who knows how
this fire could have turned out differently if the air attack had
continued and the fire progress slowed? Would we even be talking about
this today? And why aren’t we just shooting these damn drones out of the
sky in this kind of situation? How stupid IS this, anyway?

“Oh, sorry I grounded your airplanes. But look at all these cool pictures
I got from my new drone! Clumsy me!”

If I sound mad, and even more over-the-top than usual, well, guess what …
I am. Honestly, I’m so pissed at this point — there’s a word you don’t see
in print often — I’m swinging out at everything in my inflammable-brush-
covered path. And I don’t really care who I hit or whose feelings I hurt,
so long as they’ve got anything to do with the problem that’s absolutely
killing our counties and our rural communities. And until some of these
people — our so-called “leaders,” and supposed brightest minds — get
locked in a room with people who know what the hell they’re talking about
and make an actual, true, real, no-holds-barred commitment to changing the
landscape, none of this is going to stop. We’ll keep watching plumes of
smoke in the sky every summer and fall as our surroundings burn through a
hellish eternity while those in charge shrug, point fingers and pose for
the cameras.

That’s why I’m so angry. If you’re offended or hurt by anything I said
here today, my best guess is you’re probably part of the problem too.

Whoops. Clumsy me.

Mike Wolcott is editor of the Enterprise-Record. He can be reached at
mwol...@chicoer.com.



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