“All the warnings were there. It was almost a carbon copy — the same warnings that were ignored before Paradise, ignored again before the Palisades. And nobody was held accountable.” — Jonathan Vigliotti
On January 7, 2025, the Palisades Fire ignited in Los Angeles. Over the first few hours of the fire, the second-largest city in America had no firefighters on the front lines and no coordinated evacuation. Residents fought the flames with garden hoses.
“Where are the firefighters?” somebody, running from the fire, screamed into a live television shot.
Where, indeed, were Los Angeles firefighters? Jonathan Vigliotti — CBS national correspondent, Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award winner — was there from the beginning. His new book, Torched: How a City Was Left to Burn and the Olympic Rush to Rebuild Los Angeles, is the searing firsthand account of the tragic failure of the Los Angeles authorities to respond to the fire.
The story Vigliotti tells is not new. In some ways, it is a carbon copy of the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise in Northern California. First as tragedy then as farce: inadequate evacuation routes, uncleared fuel loads, officials who failed to act were repeated almost exactly in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. More than eighty people died in Paradise and more than thirty in the LA fires. The economic damage in LA will likely make it the costliest natural disaster in US history. And when the LA mayor and the Californian governor appeared in the first press conference after the fires broke out, Vigliotti reports, all Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom were talking about was the 2028 Olympics.
The political reckoning has not happened, Vigliotti warns. Bass is still mayor and Newsom is a Presidential frontrunner for 2028. California’s current governor’s race is dominated by homelessness and crime. Wildfire — the existential threat to the state, the one where more than $2 billion in taxpayer money was pumped into agencies over several years with more than half a billion unaccounted for — is barely mentioned.
The fires will be back, Vigliotti warns. Maybe this year for the World Cup, maybe in 2028 for the Olympics. So where are the firefighters?
Five Takeaways
• Where Are the Firefighters? No official response at ground zero. No coordinated evacuation. Traffic gridlock blocked fire trucks. Residents fought embers with garden hoses. A man running from the hillside screamed into a live shot: “Where are the firefighters?” That became the question of the disaster.
• A Carbon Copy of Paradise. The same warnings — inadequate evacuation routes, uncleared fuel loads, officials who failed to act — were issued before Paradise in 2018 and before the Palisades in 2025. Ignored both times. Nobody was held accountable. Nobody was fired.
• The Olympics Come First. In the first press conference after the fires broke out, Bass and Newsom were already talking about the 2028 Olympics. The fires were still burning. Vigliotti’s counter: the question is not whether LA can rebuild. It is whether it can avoid the same disaster happening again.
• $2 Billion, Half a Billion Unaccounted For. More than $2 billion pumped into homeless agencies over several years. More than half a billion unaccounted for. Wildfire prevention chronically underfunded. The problem is not taxes — it’s where the money goes.
• The Political Reckoning That Hasn’t Happened. The governor’s race is dominated by homelessness and crime. Wildfire barely mentioned. The conditions that created the Palisades disaster have not been remedied. This summer, and every summer, the fire will come back.
About the Guest
Jonathan Vigliotti is a CBS News national correspondent, Emmy and Murrow Award winner, and author of Torched: How a City Was Left to Burn and the Olympic Rush to Rebuild Los Angeles (Atria/One Signal, May 12, 2026).
References
Torched by Jonathan Vigliotti (Atria/One Signal, May 12, 2026)
Lizzie Johnson, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
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Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: California wildfires from Paradise to Palisades
00:01:43 The scope of the LA fires
00:03:38 Is comparing fires by economic damage tasteless?
00:05:37 A carbon copy: the same ignored warnings
00:06:11 Vigliotti’s story: cancelling Hawaii to stay in LA
00:09:00 Traffic chaos and no evacuation coordination
00:10:00 Ground zero with no firefighters
00:12:00 “Where are the firefighters?”
00:20:00 Bass, Newsom, and the Olympics
00:28:00 Failure to hold anyone accountable
00:33:00 The 2028 Olympics and the rush to rebuild
00:39:04 Wildfire barely mentioned in the governor’s race
00:41:25 Higher taxes or better allocation?
00:43:11 The warning: this summer, and every summer