Bonner Cohen, Ph.D., senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) told AFN that people ought to take a look at the climatological history of the area in question. 
"That climatological record shows that Southern California, and that would be here the greater Los Angeles area, is in an arid, windy climate and it has been arid and windy with very low humidity for centuries and centuries," said Cohen. "The problem there is not climate or climate change, but rather the failure of state and local officials to address a problem they had to know was going to come."
How could they have known? According to Cohen, any time that you have a wildfire and winds gusting at 80 to 100 miles per hour in a part of the world that typically gets very little rainfall this time
of year, you're going to have acute danger of wildfire.
Examples of news outlets and op-eds blaming climate change for the Los Angeles fires include PBS, NPR, Politico, Washington Post, and New York Times. The argument is that emissions from mankind's use of fossil fuels have led to things such as warmer temperatures and drier conditions.
NWS saw it coming
Still, Cohen sees things differently.
"The National Weather Service warned on Jan. 2 that conditions were ripe for very strong Santa Ana winds, these are the winds that blow in from the south and southwest that can spread a wildfire," said Cohen. "Climate change had absolutely nothing to do with it simply because the area's climate has not changed recently, but what has changed sadly over the course of time are public policies put into place by state and local officials that are woefully inadequate for dealing with wildfires."
