California Fires So Bad, Beirut Buildings Burn Too

Behind it all, official incompetence and criminal negligence led to disastrous consequences.

Beirut, September 16 – Wildfires raging in the westernmost of the US’s forty-eight states have grown so fierce, observers noted today, that buildings and entire port facilities all the way over in the eastern Mediterranean have also caught fire.

Yesterday’s fire at a landmark office building in the Lebanese capital came on the heels of a massive explosion several weeks ago in the city’s port, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate ignited and destroyed a swath of the city, killing hundreds and causing billions of dollars in property damage. California’s 2020 wildfires have destroyed a record number of acres in recorded history, the result of poor forest management by the state and, some experts argue, of human-induced climate change. As of Monday, the number of acres destroyed in 2020 wildfires in California had reached a record 3,451,428. Officials declined to disclose whether that figure includes the areas of Beirut leveled in the port explosion.

Lebanese fire officials expressed caution in assessing the causes of the two local extensions of the California blazes. “The immediate cause of the office building fire today remains undetermined,” stated Chief Hamar al-Toukhous at a press conference Tuesday evening. “We cannot rule out foul play, but negligence may also be a factor,” a possible allusion to years of California fire officials refusing or neglecting to conduct controlled burns of at-risk woodland ares to clear them of tinder that ended up igniting much larger expanses.

Al-Toukhous also implied a possible connection between the August port blast and yesterday’s blaze. “The initial assessment of each incident pointed to ‘welding’ as the source of the ignition, but that only tells us they have a common origin.”

Other experts drew further links between the Beirut and California fires. “Behind it all, official incompetence and criminal negligence led to disastrous consequences,” explained Gabeen Nousoum of the American University here in the capital. “Political agendas, preservation of fiefdoms, and no small measure of corruption and currying favor resulted in no one taking the most basic preventive steps, knowing there was someone else to blame, be it ‘climate change’ or ‘Israel’ or whoever.”

Nousoum predicted more of the same if the powers in control of Lebanon/California for decades continue to squander the human and natural resources their land offers, instead opting to subordinate the interests and welfare of the citizenry in pursuit of a progressive Utopia that remains ever-distant despite the huge sums allocated to making it a reality.

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