Trust Torched: Newsom’s Negligence Leaves Pacific Palisades in Ashes

Paul Riverbank, 1/28/2026Spencer Pratt's memoir reveals the devastating impact of negligence on Pacific Palisades during a catastrophic fire, spotlighting failures in emergency response and city planning. As he transforms from reality star to activist, Pratt calls for accountability and questions the priorities of those in power.

Pratt, never one to slip quietly into the background, took it personally. Every missed hydrant, every empty reservoir, every official excuse—he catalogued them with the precision of a man who’d spent his career under the spotlight. For him, this wasn’t a random act of nature. “People keep calling it a natural disaster,” he writes in sharp strokes across the opening pages of his memoir. “That’s a dodge. What happened here was years in the making. Negligence wearing the mask of fate.”

The Palisades had paid its dues—$700 million in state taxes in 2024 alone. A fraction, Pratt points out, could have paid for simple but crucial measures: trimming dead brush, checking water reserves, or just maintaining a firebreak. But budgets got slashed. Crews were stretched thin. When flames arrived, the city’s defenses buckled—firefighters, desperate for water, found only sputtering hydrants and empty tanks. Helicopters passed overhead, searching for water to drop as minutes wasted away.

Through it all, Pratt’s frustration hardened into something sharper. His 911 calls offer a small mosaic of desperation and bureaucratic indifference. “Are you sending anyone?” he remembers asking, again and again. The answer was always a version of “We have no trucks. No one's coming—not now.” All he could do was watch through a security camera as flames, heart-shaped and awful, licked at his young son’s bed.

There’s a pattern here—not just with fires, but what follows. After the flames, insurance companies vanished too. Dropped by their insurer—Farmers—the Pratts found themselves pushed onto California’s FAIR Plan: coverage in name, not comfort. Expensive, stripped of perks, it’s the final net before freefall. None of this slipped past Pratt, who dove into public records and lawsuits, documenting years of overlooked warnings and failed checks. “The closer I looked, the more obvious it became. This loss wasn’t random. It was a choice, made year after year, by people with other priorities.”

Pratt’s voice, usually known for tabloid headlines and televised spats, took on a new edge. “Mr. Hair Gel,” his moniker for Governor Newsom, was just the start of a political crusade. Newsom fired back, dismissing Pratt as “a C-list reality star,” but the insults couldn’t dull the core question: How could a city watch residents pump millions into a system that failed them when it mattered most?

Locals joined the lawsuits and the hearings, sifting through old fire reports, weather warnings, and budget sheets. The story snowballed—Pratt may have become the public face, but beneath the headlines, neighbors were asking many of the same questions: Why wasn’t anyone ready when the winds roared in? Why hadn’t the brush been cleared or thermal cameras double-checked the state parks after the last blaze? Every missed step became another tally in a growing ledger of blame.

It didn’t end with the losses. “Near as soon as we’d hosed the ash from our shoes, news broke about city plans to rezone,” Pratt wrote. “Affordable housing, they say. Luxury towers, more likely—crammed into canyons where the roads buckle under ordinary traffic, never mind an evacuation route.”

As climate threats ramp up, the Palisades fire feels less like a freak tragedy and more like a warning. Insurance stays out of reach for many, and California’s patchwork emergency systems keep stretching to their limits. Pratt’s transformation—from “guy you loved to hate” to activist—tracks with a city’s own uneasy reckoning. Will Los Angeles remember his crusade in the voting booth, or will it fade into the next news cycle’s churn?

In the end, it’s not just a story of lost homes. It’s the stubbornness of memory, the politics of disaster, and the uneasy feeling that sometimes the people meant to protect you are busy rehearsing their next press conference. The embers might cool, but the questions—and the resentment—stick around like the smoke.

Lights flickered, smoke clung to the hillside, and Spencer Pratt stood where his living room once was—a man more used to reality television scripts than the raw script of disaster. The fire didn’t wait for morning. It tore up the canyons of Pacific Palisades with little warning, leaving behind not only ruins but a bitterness that lingers even after the scent of burned wood fades.Pratt, never one to slip quietly into the background, took it personally. Every missed hydrant, every empty reservoir, every official excuse—he catalogued them with the precision of a man who’d spent his career under the spotlight. For him, this wasn’t a random act of nature. “People keep calling it a natural disaster,” he writes in sharp strokes across the opening pages of his memoir. “That’s a dodge. What happened here was years in the making. Negligence wearing the mask of fate.”The Palisades had paid its dues—$700 million in state taxes in 2024 alone. A fraction, Pratt points out, could have paid for simple but crucial measures: trimming dead brush, checking water reserves, or just maintaining a firebreak. But budgets got slashed. Crews were stretched thin. When flames arrived, the city’s defenses buckled—firefighters, desperate for water, found only sputtering hydrants and empty tanks. Helicopters passed overhead, searching for water to drop as minutes wasted away.Through it all, Pratt’s frustration hardened into something sharper. His 911 calls offer a small mosaic of desperation and bureaucratic indifference. “Are you sending anyone?” he remembers asking, again and again. The answer was always a version of “We have no trucks. No one's coming—not now.” All he could do was watch through a security camera as flames, heart-shaped and awful, licked at his young son’s bed.There’s a pattern here—not just with fires, but what follows. After the flames, insurance companies vanished too. Dropped by their insurer—Farmers—the Pratts found themselves pushed onto California’s FAIR Plan: coverage in name, not comfort. Expensive, stripped of perks, it’s the final net before freefall. None of this slipped past Pratt, who dove into public records and lawsuits, documenting years of overlooked warnings and failed checks. “The closer I looked, the more obvious it became. This loss wasn’t random. It was a choice, made year after year, by people with other priorities.”Pratt’s voice, usually known for tabloid headlines and televised spats, took on a new edge. “Mr. Hair Gel,” his moniker for Governor Newsom, was just the start of a political crusade. Newsom fired back, dismissing Pratt as “a C-list reality star,” but the insults couldn’t dull the core question: How could a city watch residents pump millions into a system that failed them when it mattered most?Locals joined the lawsuits and the hearings, sifting through old fire reports, weather warnings, and budget sheets. The story snowballed—Pratt may have become the public face, but beneath the headlines, neighbors were asking many of the same questions: Why wasn’t anyone ready when the winds roared in? Why hadn’t the brush been cleared or thermal cameras double-checked the state parks after the last blaze? Every missed step became another tally in a growing ledger of blame.It didn’t end with the losses. “Near as soon as we’d hosed the ash from our shoes, news broke about city plans to rezone,” Pratt wrote. “Affordable housing, they say. Luxury towers, more likely—crammed into canyons where the roads buckle under ordinary traffic, never mind an evacuation route.”As climate threats ramp up, the Palisades fire feels less like a freak tragedy and more like a warning. Insurance stays out of reach for many, and California’s patchwork emergency systems keep stretching to their limits. Pratt’s transformation—from “guy you loved to hate” to activist—tracks with a city’s own uneasy reckoning. Will Los Angeles remember his crusade in the voting booth, or will it fade into the next news cycle’s churn?In the end, it’s not just a story of lost homes. It’s the stubbornness of memory, the politics of disaster, and the uneasy feeling that sometimes the people meant to protect you are busy rehearsing their next press conference. The embers might cool, but the questions—and the resentment—stick around like the smoke.