The images coming out of Los Angeles are both shocking and devastating. We have gotten videos of an orange and alien landscape and images of the aftermath which look like they could have been taken in a distant war-torn land. Those images have led the nation to hope and pray for the well-being and safety of all of the Californians who are caught in the path of the historic wildfires as well as the firefighters who are courageously doing what they can to contain the multiple fires. As of the writing of this column, the fires have claimed at least 16 lives, ravaged tens of thousands of acres, destroyed more than 12,000 structures, and could end up causing $57 billion in damage. According to Cal Fire, it is the most destructive fire in L.A. history. At least 319,000 Californians have had to be evacuated from their homes. Those numbers, paired with the images of the destruction, present a world that is beyond anything we can imagine.

While the battle rages and the fires still burn, it might be too early to ask ourselves how this happened and how we can keep it from happening again, but those are questions that need to be asked and answered. Certainly one of the main culprits is a hotter, drier climate due to climate change. This is not peak fire season in California, but climate change has pushed the Santa Ana winds later and supercharged them. Those winds, whipping flames and embers at 100 mph, combined with extreme drought conditions (a typical wet season would see 4.64 inches of rain so far, right now downtown L.A. has seen less than a quarter inch since October 1) to create the tinderbox that led to these fires. But climate change alone is not responsible for the scenes of destruction coming out of Los Angeles. In the upcoming days, weeks, and months, a serious policy review is going to be necessary to see what, if anything, could have been done to prevent this tragedy.

Some have already begun to speculate that power lines downed by the winds are responsible for the fires. Power lines are the third-most common cause of wildfires in the United States, behind lightning strikes (there was no lightning in the area when the L.A. fires started) and human-started fires. California has added 6 million people (more than the entire population of Wisconsin) over the last 20 years, leading to more development, more urbanization, and more power lines. Power lines were responsible for the devastating wildfires that hit California in 2016 and 2017. Those fires led to Pacific Gas & Electric declaring bankruptcy after facing $30 billion in lawsuits. Southern California Edison, the company responsible for the power lines where the fire started has said in a state-mandated report that they didn’t detect any anomalies until after the reported fire start time.

In a preview of what we can expect from the next four years, President-elect Donald Trump has been altogether unhelpful, opting to use the fires as an opportunity to attack and name call his political opponents rather than support those Americans who have been affected by the disaster. In talking about these and previous wildfires, the president-elect has suggested that water regulation and forest clearing policies (experts have said that forest clearing would not have had an effect on the L.A. fires as they started in urban areas) are to blame. In just five days he will have an opportunity to investigate and do something about those policies, but the question remains whether he will do so or just use the tragedy of others to try and score political points.

Los Angeles has long held a special place in the American imagination. For many, it represents the promise of the American experience itself, a place that draws thousands of hopeful movie stars each year. And while perhaps Hollywood doesn’t hold the same place in American culture that it once did, largely thanks to streaming services, it cannot be denied the role that Los Angeles has played in helping define the image of America both here and abroad.

Now that iconic American city is under fire, literally. Angelenos deserve our empathy and our support as they work to stop the fires and try and rebuild their lives. But once the fires are out and the rebuilding has begun, we need to ask how this happened and what can be done to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.