Editors at National Review Online ponder the significance of the ongoing Los Angeles wildfire story.

The scenes from Los Angeles County are truly apocalyptic — leaping flames and swirling embers, creating toxic, burned-out hellscapes where there had been thriving neighborhoods hours before.

As of this writing, at least 24 are dead and 12,000 structures have been destroyed in fires that have hit an area roughly two and a half times the size of Manhattan. With more dry and windy conditions expected this week, sadly, all of those numbers could rise. It will take years for some of these communities to recover, if ever.

There’s already an intense political debate over responsibility for the catastrophe and the inadequate response to it, and it’s not just the expected sniping between California governor Gavin Newsom and his preferred foil, President-elect Donald Trump. Kristin Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, is publicly blaming the city’s leadership for budget cuts that she says hampered the response and for inoperative fire hydrants.

The first thing to observe is that this event is an act of God that would have strained even more competent, better-prepared authorities. It is extremely difficult to fight multiple large fires, fueled by nearly 100-mph winds in drought conditions.

That said, the posture of California officials has basically been, “Climate change is threatening life on the planet as we know it, including by creating vastly more dangerous wildfires, but we can’t be bothered with preparing a more robust response because we are too busy subsidizing windmills and mandating zero-emissions vehicles.”

The State of Florida has long been threatened with hurricanes and so has honed how it handles them to an art form, especially under its detail-oriented governor, Ron DeSantis. California should take note.

The first rule of disaster response is to be present, which Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass violated by leaving for the inauguration of Ghana’s new president despite increasingly dire warnings about an imminent windstorm and elevated fire risk. It’s not obvious how much this mattered, since Bass is a nonentity, but her absence on an entirely discretionary overseas trip may have delayed the emergency declaration.