Benjamin Hamlington's house in Altadena burned down in the wildfires on Wednesday .

Hamlington was able to drive in and see the damage around 2pm .

There was nothing violent or chaotic about it. No one stopped me from driving in. There were no sirens. No attempts to fight any of it no fire trucks that I saw.

The Trump administration will create the right combination of policy and investment incentives to allow our airline and space industry to fully advance into the 21st century at a much faster rate.

Matthew G. Andersson : New types of airline aircraft are going to change in ways that will be as dramatic as the first flight at Kitty Hawk by the Wright brothers.

He says the Biden administration had nothing but contempt for airline service, unless it could be used for political purposes.

John Lindsay was New York City’s mayor from 1966 to 1974 .

He was criticized for what they saw as a lack of leadership in the aftermath of the storm.

In California , Newsom is responsible for a state that did not allocate sufficient money and resources to police and fire departments, he says.

Robin M. Itzler : L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said her priority is inclusion, diversity and equity.

She says she's more concerned with promoting the DEI agenda than making sure there’s water in fire hydrants and reservoirs.

Robin : Will the Newsom Fires’ open liberal eyes? Some think yes, as they learn more about state and local leadership failures.

Some Democrats have been quick to blame the historically destructive wildfires on climate change.

Firefighters say their focus is on containment, public safety, and salvaging property.

"For us, it doesn’t get very political at all,” L.A. Fire Department Public Information Officer Marco Rodriguez said.

Ex-lawmaker Mike Gatto says poor preparation and slow reaction time from local, city, and state officials allowed the fire to reach such devastating proportions.

Gatto served in the California legislature as a Democrat from 2010 to 2016.

The fires resulted from a perfect storm of strong winds, overgrown brush , and dry conditions due to a lack of rain.

Gatto: The laws on looting and theft in California have been weak for the past decade .

The scarcity of clean water for wildfire victims is a highlight of the past week’s failures, he said.

“Climate change is not an excuse. It is not something that absolves our officials from good planning and good execution,” Gatto said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed executive order suspending enforcement of California Environmental Quality Act .

Julian Zelizer : Newsom effectively admitted that these laws are a big part of why California has the highest home and energy prices in the nation.

He says California activists have abused the CEQA and its powerful citizen-suit provisions to block housing, energy, transportation, and manufacturing projects.

Zelizer says Newsom should be doing his utmost to repeal, not suspend, the laws.

Jarrett Stepman: California Gov. Gavin Newsom's reputation has been sullied as much as his.

He says Newsom and those who run California deserve much of the blame for not just the Los Angeles fires, but the towering infernos that have been ravaging the state for years .

California 's obsession with environmentalism is destroying its environment and making it impossible to fix once disaster has struck, Stepman says.

John Lindsay , a young and attractive liberal who dreamed of the presidency, saw his political career effectively end when a blizzard dropped 15 inches of snow on the city.

Maybe Newsom survives this disaster in California , but his tenure in office will now be defined by his failure on the fire issue.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was more than 7,000 miles away from the fires when they erupted last week .

Bass was visiting Ghana with three others for the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama .

Bass has also faced scrutiny over cutting millions of dollars from the city’s fire department budget.

Frida Ghitis : Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis didn't do anything to restrict development in hurricane-prone areas.

She says GOP didn't restrict relief and rebuilding aid to those states, despite those governors' failure to do those things.

Ghitis asks: Are Republicans counting on Democrats to observe the standards of good-faith empiricism while they are free from niceties?.

Julian Zelizer : After major disasters like this one, one of the most common questions people ask is how to help.

Donors can’t typically do much to speed search-and-rescue efforts, Zelizer says.

He says it’s surprisingly challenging to turn generosity into results for the people affected by disasters.

Zelizer writes: Effective giving in response to disasters requires looking at potential charities.

Donations happen almost immediately after a disaster, and quickly die down as the news cycle moves on to other things.

Charity evaluators like GiveWell have found it particularly hard to get the clarity they prize when it comes to disaster relief.

Disaster relief is a field where there’s a lot of uncertainty about what works.

GiveWell has called Doctors Without Borders a leader in transparency.

A charity that does cash transfers to the poorest people in the world did a good experiment in disaster relief.

David Frum : Experiments should be announced in advance, have a clear mission statement and report how the trial went.