Overnight water drops helped stop the spread of a huge wildfire churning through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles and firefighters battled to increase containment as dangerous winds whipped up again Thursday.

The question of who is in charge is testimony to the diffusion and, at times, dysfunction that make up the core DNA of the governance of the greater Los Angeles area.

The Los Angeles fires are a soul-crushing and city-defining disaster. Callous voices have called it a city-destroying event, but they don’t know Los Angeles very well.

The wildfire devastation in Los Angeles will require California to develop far greater resiliency to climate-worsened disasters to sustain its revival—and a path for withstanding future disasters.