As wildfires rage across Southern California, devastating communities and forcing thousands to evacuate, it’s tempting to see this as a natural disaster. But the truth is far more disturbing. This isn’t just a freak event caused by bad luck or extreme weather. The fires consuming California are the result of decades of deliberate choices made by corporations and politicians who value profit over people, fossil fuels over sustainability, and exploitation over equity.

Experts estimate that the Southern California fires have caused at least $50 billion in damages. I am traveling to Los Angeles with Humanity First to provide legal support because I know what is about to happen — if it hasn’t already begun.

I remember what happened days after the 2023 Lahaina fires when I flew to Hawaii to provide pro bono legal aid to fire victims. We navigated everything from home insurance and business contracts, to recovering legal documents, to managing immigration status, and more. In total, I supported about 50 families, a humbling experience.

But one constant theme with each client left me shocked and angry. Even before most could return to their homes to assess the extent of the damage, private equity vultures had begun to relentlessly call, harass, and pressure them to accept pennies on the dollar for their destroyed homes. Vultures exploiting people’s desperation and depression. I worked with these families to ensure they understood their rights, protections, and options before making any decisions out of confusion or fear. But the vultures were relentless.

I suspect vulture capitalists will make the same attempts to exploit already devastated families, and I want to do my part to protect their humanity.

Here are five reasons why the wildfires are not a “natural disaster”:

Five harsh truths

1. They knew this was coming

Oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil knew as far back as the 1970s that fossil fuels would cause catastrophic climate change. A report from the Harvard Gazette revealed that Exxon’s internal projections on the impact of carbon emissions were frighteningly accurate — even more than some governmental forecasts. Despite knowing that fossil fuels would lead to rising temperatures, droughts, and wildfires, ExxonMobil didn’t sound the alarm. Instead, they sowed doubt, funded climate denial, and doubled down on expanding their fossil fuel empire.

Today, those same corporations continue to prioritize drilling and extraction over sustainable solutions, making billions while the planet burns. Southern California is on fire, and the fossil fuel industry isn’t just complicit — they’re responsible.

2. Budget priorities that set us up to burn

At the local level, LA’s political leaders have also failed their communities. Instead of investing in critical infrastructure to combat the growing climate crisis — like increasing funding for firefighting services — the LA City Council made a different choice. As journalist Ariana Jasmine reports, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget decreased by about $17.6 million this year. The LA City Council did this while giving the green light to a four-year commitment contract to grow LAPD — with a hefty price tag of $1 billion.

This misplaced priority reflects a broader trend in American politics, where the fear of crime outweighs the fear of climate disaster, even though crime rates have been decreasing and climate catastrophe is exponentially increasing. Studies show that climate change already kills roughly 1,300 Americans annually. The World Health Organization estimates more than 250,000 deaths annually caused by climate change. With an increasing climate crisis, these numbers will sadly increase too.

3. Fighting fires with modern-day slavery

So who is on the frontlines battling these infernos? Many are incarcerated individuals working for slave wages. It’s worth highlighting some key and mortifying data points from a recent Forbes analysis below. In California, prison labor is used to fight wildfires. While incarcerated people volunteer for these roles, the conditions and compensation are appalling:

• They’re paid less than a dollar an hour, or a daily rate of $5.80 to $10.24.
• Their daily food budget is $4, usually a sandwich and an apple.
• When they’re released from prison, they’re barred from getting jobs as firefighters due to felony convictions, despite risking their lives to do the job while incarcerated.

This system exploits people when they’re most vulnerable and then denies them opportunities for meaningful employment after they’ve served their time. It’s a modern-day version of slavery, enabled by a loophole in the 13th Amendment that allows forced labor for those convicted of crimes. This isn’t justice. It’s exploitation. And given this is propped up by the private prison industry, it’s also a sanitized form of human trafficking.

4. Billionaires hoard/own California’s water

Wildfires don’t just need heat to spread—they need drought conditions, which have worsened due to the privatization of California’s water supply. More Perfect Union has conducted outstanding investigative journalism in this space.

The Resnicks, a billionaire couple worth over $8 billion, own the majority of California’s water rights. Their control over this critical resource has caused untold harm to 40 million Californians. Water should be a public resource, but in California, it’s treated like a commodity for billionaires.

So why don’t politicians hold them accountable? Because the Resnicks fund their re-election bids. For decades, politicians like the late Senator Dianne Feinstein worked to protect the Resnicks’ interests, ensuring that water remained privatized and inaccessible to many communities. Water is a human right, but California’s water policy reflects a system that prioritizes profit over people.

5. Insurance companies skipping town

Adding insult to injury, home insurance companies are abandoning California.

As Barron’s reports, after the devastating wildfires of 2017 and 2018, many insurers either paused coverage in high-risk areas or raised premiums to unaffordable levels. State Farm, one of the largest insurers in the country, recently canceled 72,000 policies in California, with many of those cancellations affecting high-risk, upscale neighborhoods in LA—including areas now engulfed in flames.

These companies aren’t just fleeing from risk—they’re leaving ordinary Californians without the safety net they need to rebuild their lives. This not only devastates Californians, it sets a horrific precedent for other parts of the country that will soon be impacted by the climate crisis — or are already being impacted by the climate crisis. A recent study warns of this growing insurance bubble across the United States, which when it pops, will devastate millions.

The flames of late-stage capitalism

What we’re seeing in California is the result of late-stage capitalism at war with itself.

• The oil and gas industry fuels climate change.
• The insurance industry refuses to cover the harm caused by climate change.
• The private prison industry profits off cheap labor to fight the fires.
• The water industry hoards a critical resource, worsening drought conditions.

In this war between billion-dollar industries, the losers are always ordinary people.

This system is unsustainable and morally bankrupt. The wildfires raging across LA are a direct consequence of a system that prioritizes corporate profits over human lives.



The bottom line is that these fires are not a natural disaster—they’re a policy disaster. Thus, I’m reminded of the famous Cree Indian proverb:

Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money.

For decades, we’ve allowed corporations to poison our planet, exploit our labor, hoard our resources, and abandon us in times of crisis. The flames we’re seeing today are the direct result of those choices.

In response, we must hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. Oil and gas companies knew the climate crisis was coming, and they chose to lie about it. They should be paying for the destruction they’ve caused — not taxpayers. We must end the use of prison labor for firefighting. These individuals deserve fair wages and employment opportunities after their release, not exploitation. California’s water must be reclaimed as a public resource. Billionaires shouldn’t own the lifeblood of an entire state. Finally, we must vote out politicians who continue to capitulate to corporate interests. The climate crisis is here, and it’s not slowing down. Politicians who fail to take bold action must be held accountable at the ballot box.

It’s time to demand a radical shift in how we approach climate, labor, water, and corporate accountability. We are witnessing the logical, predictable, avoidable end result of exploitative late stage capitalism, and unless we activate and organize to stop this destruction, there will be nothing left to save.

(The author is a human rights attorney and author based in the Chicagoland area. Born in Pakistan, he and his family immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. He has been working with Humanity First since 2005 when he joined to help support those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He has subsequently worked with them in Mali, Guatemala, Turkey and Hawaii.  Byspecial arrangement with Sapan)