Los Angeles Wildfires: Raging inferno exposes unpreparedness in California's disaster relief measures
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As Los Angeles faces apocalyptic scenes from destructive wildfires, controversy over the state's environmental policies as well as an ongoing political feud have emerged. Our reporter Zhou Jiaxin has the details.

The deadly wildfires in Los Angeles continue to burn and the true impacts of its devastation remain unknown. 

Thousands of homes, including those of several Hollywood celebrities, have been destroyed along with historic landmarks. 

"Everything you've ever known… it's like gone."

"Half or or more of the entire Palisades (is gone)… it's devastating."

ZHOU JIAXIN CGTN Reporter "Incoming President Donald Trump has lashed out at the California governor for how he's managed the situation, blaming the state's conservation efforts which he said are responsible for fire hydrants running dry in urban areas."

GAVIN NEWSOM California Governor "People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives – this guy wanted to politicize it."

It's politics once again fueling an already grim and dire situation. 

Within seven hours of the major Palisades Fire blazing through the west side of the city, one of three million-gallon tankers supporting the neighborhood's hydrants had been bled dry. 

Facing an issue of "a tremendous demand," the chief engineer of the Water and Power Department said they pushed the system to the brink, urging customers to conserve water. 

JANISSE QUINONES CEO, LA Department of Water and Power "The fire department needs the water to fight the fires. And we're fighting a wildfire with an urban water system, and that is really challenging."

Even more challenging is getting water into the higher-elevation tanks, particularly at a rate necessary to cope with a fire moving five football fields a minute. 

Hollywood star James Woods blamed the government for its lack of preparedness, directing his anger at the state governor and city mayor. 

LA mayor Karen Bass has also been criticized for signing off on a near 18-million-dollar budget cut in which the city's fire chief sounded alarm in a memo one month ago. 

It wrote the cost-saving measures were limiting the fire department's capacity to respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires. 

Most of wildfire spending in California is on putting out fires, not preventing them. 

Experts say this failure is the foreseeable result of a system that was never READY for this sort of climate change. 

"This… this is where people need to wake up… because if you're voting and pick people for softness, or for the fuzzy feeling you got."

Wildfires are costing the US economy between 394 billion to 893 billion dollars annually. 

Inadequate preparedness, disadvantaged infrastructure, budget cutbacks and weak political will, the worst-case scenario in recorded California history now faces a loss of over 135 billion dollars at a preliminary level. 

ZHOU JIAXIN CGTN Reporter "The country has vast fire-prone ecosystems, and all the conditions inevitably point to more wildfires in the future. So, are we expecting another catastrophic environmental disaster to burn through communities? And, in the end, who will shoulder the responsibility of putting people first and ensuring safety?"