This is a contributing factor to the fires currently plaguing California:
“In 2016, then-governor Jerry Brown actually vetoed a bill that had unanimously passed the state legislature to promote the clearing of trees dangerously close to power lines. Brown’s team says this legislation was no big deal, but one progressive watchdog called the bill “neither insignificant or small.”
In the margin Progressives who dominate California politics have promoted green (more expensive) energy so there has been less money for mundane things like fire breaks. But this is a multivariable problem with really good visuals so the media provides great video but little real analysis.
Photo Credit: I took both of the photos in Southern California about 2015. There are fires every year in the Southwest what changes most is how much media coverage they get.