Still no news on what caused the fires. Really hope the precise causes are known soon so that the city and state can start making the prevention adjustments necessary.
Does the answer help the prevention? It seems the answer is either morher nature or people, and i don't know how you even fully prevent the 2nd one.
Great question as I've been thinking about this a lot.
Let's say the answer is that this was accidentally caused by human negligence (fireworks etc.)
Here's what I'd propose in a vacuum (not knowing what L.A. is already doing.)
1) Heavy emphasis on public education about how to prevent unintentional man-made fires. Emphasized in schools, emphasize in local govt communications etc. The training would be very specific to Los Angeles.
2) Some sort of volunteer watch in the surrounding areas, I'm thinking like watchtowers and people walking the areas consistently during high risk times. If they are already doing this, increase it 5X...whatever it takes to catch these causes immediately.
3) Some sort of rapid response mechanism on ground that can reach the fires as close to immediately as possible (again, focused on those times that are extreme high risk). Would need to be ground based obviously.
4) Bury electrical wires in the highest risk areas, or put in some sort of advance power line monitoring solution.
5) require homes next to the at-risk areas to be more fireproofed, new builds and to whatever extent possible, existing homes
I'm probably missing some practical solutions. I know that Los Angeles has financial troubles so the state may need to get involved to put in measures like these.
The most unacceptable response to these fires is deciding Los Angeles/California is already doing enough and that this was just a one-off event. If that tact is taken, we will undoubtedly see more disasters IMHO that may have been preventable.