NOT THE BABYLON BEE, PART DEUX: A new view of two critical days that set the stage for the devastating Palisades fire.
An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.
“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.
“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”
That’s the perfect epitaph for the Pacific Palisades.
Modern blue-state governing policy is often, quite literally, at Monty Python-skit levels. https://t.co/FcpQYaOsWD
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) December 29, 2025