A family who lost their house during the Palisade fire share this sad story — “The house across from ours has four sons, and they stayed home throughout the fire, constantly watering their house. In the end, they successfully saved it. According to them, they didn’t see the fire department come to extinguish the fire. From their surveillance footage, we saw a photo showing that the fire department had passed by earlier, but they only stopped near our house briefly to take pictures.

We have water faucets in both our front and back yards. The fire department had time to take photos, but not to help water the house — this is simply negligence.”

I also read posts on X saying that every homeowner who stayed until the end and didn’t give up on their house managed to save it. If ordinary homeowners can save their own properties, why is it that the well-equipped fire department failed to protect ours? Moreover, why was there no water in the firefighting reservoir in Palisades? These failures by the government directly led to this disaster. It’s truly heartbreaking.