Disaster and Dishonesty in the California Fires

by Tom Ribe

As a society, we cannot function well if misinformation comes from the President of the United States. If Trump chooses to be ignorant or half-informed on issues, that’s our problem. When he shares false narratives with the public to divide people and promote conservative interests over the public interest, we must call him on it and make sure people know he is misleading us. 

The recent fires burning suburban areas of Los Angeles have raised political tensions during widespread property damage and human suffering. Trump used the fire disasters as a wedge issue and to demand that California implement unrelated pro-industry policies. He even demanded that California institute voter suppression laws (voter ID requirements) of the sort that helped him to get elected in swing states. He implied he would withhold federal disaster aid unless his conditions were met.

California Biomes, source

Chaparral fires are common in southern California, but these recent fires were driven by unusually intense Santa Ana winds that blow from inland toward the ocean. Gale force winds drove brush fire into neighborhoods where billions of embers started new fires. Thousands of houses and businesses burned while the intensity of the winds made firefighting nearly impossible for extended times. Property losses in the billions affect the Los Angeles area. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs and homes indefinitely.

For anyone who understands fire and the natural resource issues of California, Trump’s statements would have been comical if they weren’t so callous in a disaster situation. Regardless of how nonsensical his statements, they are amplified by right wing media and repeated by his followers. And Trump managed to put himself in the news, distracting from a needed conversation about causes and solutions to worsening wildfires. 

At first, he said that local politicians and firefighters were “incompetent”. That didn’t sell well so he turned to issues that have long bothered big agriculture in California - water management and logging. 

Clearly someone put Trump up to this as his comments reveal that he doesn’t understand fire, water policy, or forestry in California. But we can understand these matters so hopefully the state can proceed with fire recovery unimpeded by a political sideshow.

Logging

Trump complained, as he has in the past, that California is mismanaging its forests, and he implied that this fire and others were caused by mismanaged forests. This narrative is easily dismissed as there are no forests where the two recent fires were burning. There is chaparral but nobody manages chaparral for commercial purposes. Further, most of the forests in California, where there are forests, are managed by the US Forest Service on federal lands.

The right has long implied that if California would manage its forests “better” then fires would not burn so much or so hot. California has almost no control of how federal agencies manage forests and the obvious implication of Trump’s comments about forestry is that if those forests were logged for profit, they would burn less or not at all.

The problem is that this is not true. Multiple studies have shown that logging in almost all forest types worsens fire behavior because of various factors like flammable slash, increased drying and heating from opening the canopy, and the growth of flammable brush into logged areas that used to be shaded, moist and cool. 

The Trump forestry narrative is therefore ignorant, and it condescends to California officials, implying they are incompetent because they are influenced by environmentalists and, after all, conservatives, even ones from eastern cities, always know best. 

Trump is a climate change denier and has reversed or silenced federal response to climate change. Big fires in the West are often driven by the effects of climate change, not the lack of commercial forestry. But Trump won’t hear anything about that.

Water

California is a big state, 760 miles from the Mexican border to the Oregon border and 250 miles wide. It has multiple mountain ranges, and everything from coastal rainforests to the driest place in the United States at Death Valley National Park. Naturally in a large area water flows are not simple with multiple watersheds, large valleys and transverse ranges.

Trump said this during his visit to Los Angeles in early January: 

“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do: He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater and mountain water that comes due with the snow, comes down when — it as it melts. There’s so much water,” Trump said. “They’re releasing it into the Pacific Ocean. And I told him for — it’s a political thing for the Democrats. I don’t know.”

Trump was mixing up issues to polarize the situation, blame California Governor Gavin Newsom, and put pressure on the state to help a solidly republican constituency frustrated by California’s deference to environmental protection. He said there was a water shortage for fighting the fire and implied that that shortage happened because California refuses to bring water down from the north.

He had three goals with these comments. First, make himself look important and better informed than those liberal California officials. Second, to blame officials for not having enough water on hand (there was no water shortage for firefighters). Third, to pressure California to override the Endangered Species Act and help farmers already awash in federally subsidized irrigation water hundreds of miles to the north.

Sacramento River Delta, Public Policy Institute of California

Trump was referring to a big controversy, entirely irrelevant to southern California’s urban water supply that has been festering in the Sacramento River area for years. Southern California doesn’t get water from the Sacramento River because it is too far north, and it is cut off from the Los Angeles Basin by a complex area of desert mountains, and people farther north are already using almost all the water in the river.

The Sacramento River flows out of the central Sierra Nevada and empties into San Francisco Bay. The river used to have strong runs of salmon and other fish, but overuse by people and dam building has destroyed the salmon runs in the river. A small fish called the Delta smelt is on the endangered species list and the law requires that enough water be maintained in the river to sustain the fish. 

The Westlands Water District, a huge area of farms south of the Sacramento Delta, has been pressuring the state to abandon fish conservation measures and allow them to use more of the water from the river, possibly drying out the Delta and killing the smelt. Other water users in California also want that water released for irrigation and the issue has caused California farmers to lobby hard for an end to protection for Sacramento River fish. The irrigation districts in California are politically powerful and decidedly republican and Trump is only too happy to carry water for them.

Eighty percent of California’s water goes to irrigation. 

Thus, Trump’s misleading comments about water supply for the firefighters. Not only was there no water shortage, but the water he was talking about is irrelevant to the Los Angeles Basin. But Trump doesn’t know any of that and he’s not interested in learning about it, especially in a state that he and his friends always lose badly. 

Map of 2025 LA fires, Al Jazeera

California has a population of 40 million people and a 4 trillion-dollar economy, by far the largest in the United States. If it were its own country, it would have the 5th largest economy in the world. 

Though the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fires are now history, the political tactics of Trump have been laid bare by these events, once again. Famous for his narcissism and lack of empathy, Trump expressed no concern for human suffering in the fires and saw the fires as an opportunity for transactional politics, pushing a dishonest right-wing narrative in the face of major disaster.