The fire has now consumed the area where the shrub was found, presumably destroying it, as well. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, in 2019 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) began replacing nearly 100-year-old power-line poles cutting through Topanga State Park when the project was shut down within days after outraged conservationists claimed endangered Braunton’s milkvetch plants had been trampled during the process.

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It gets even more insane, given what the project would have accomplished. 

Here's more:

The goal of the project was to improve fire safety for the Pacific Palisades area by replacing the wooden poles with steel, widening fire-access lanes in the area, and installing wind- and fire-resistant power lines — all after the area was identified as having an “elevated fire risk.”

“This project will help ensure power reliability and safety, while helping reduce wildfire threats,” the LADWP said at the time. “These wooden poles were installed between 1933 and 1955 and are now past their useful service life.”

Devastatingly, for the residents of Los Angeles County, it was not to be — due in part to left-wing "logic." 

Leftists: It was impossible to stop the fire!

Also Leftists: We gotta save the Braunton’s milkvetch shrub at all costs! Screw your fire prevention project!

No problem. Just blame it on "climate change" and President-elect Donald Trump.

Leftists: it was impossible to stop the fire!

Also Leftists: we gotta save the Braunton’s milkvetch shrub at all costs! Screw your fire prevention project! pic.twitter.com/BQsEcult8j

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) January 14, 2025

As Courthouse News Service reported in November 2020, Los Angeles also agreed to pay a hefty fine for its eco-boo-boo (emphasis, mine).

The city of Los Angeles agreed to pay nearly $2 million in fines for bulldozing over nine acres of a state park in the Santa Monica Mountains and trampling an endangered plant species while replacing power poles near the affluent coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.

In March 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) graded fire roads in Topanga State Park to replace 220 wooden power poles north of Will Rogers State Beach.

The utility crews also created 30 short roads and removed coastal sage scrub, chaparral habitat and Braunton’s milkvetch, which is listed as an endangered plant under the federal Endangered Species Act.

A lone hiker notified the utility company via email about the plant’s endangered status. But according to the California Coastal Commission, the same person saw the utility crews moving ahead with the project more than a week later.

A report by commission staff found that in all, 183 Braunton’s milkvetch plants along the Temescal Ridge Trail were damaged during the unpermitted project. The commission became involved because the power pole project was partially in an area it regulates.

Let's see... damage 183 plants... or potentially risk death and devastation. Hmmm. 

Here's more from the above report:

“The newly graded roads and widened existing road went directly through coastal chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities — both of which are relatively rare and important ecosystems that support and include a wide variety of coastally important plants, insects, mammals, and birds,” the commission report said.

On Wednesday [in November 2020], the commission approved a cease and desist order and a restoration plan that LADWP agreed to follow. The utility will pay $1.9 million for the violation and perform erosion control, reverse any grading it performed, and replant the area. LADWP will also implement long-term monitoring of the damage it caused.

So what about the deaths and devastating damage the raging wildfires have caused? Here's the salient point — one of such, at least:

As more and more left-wing "eco-friendly" and climate insanity is revealed, will the howling-at-the-moon climate loons change their way? Of course not. 

The question is whether CA Democrats will finally stop taking marching orders from these scolds and choose instead to make their top priority the safety and well-being of people in the areas they govern. 

I doubt that, as well, unless some of these leftist politicians take a lesson from the decisive November election beatdown of Vice President Kamala Harris and multiple down-ballot Democrat candidates. 

Time — and actions — will tell. 

Meanwhile, embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom and woefully inept Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass continue their denial and buck-passing routine.