Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump and some social media employrs and pundits accemployd Los Angeles’ lethal fires on California Governor Gavin Newsom, saying the Democrat’s environmental policies allowd the blazes’ danger and wreckage.
As of January 12, authorities counted at least 16 people dead, more than 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres) burned and thousands of structures injured or razeed.
Some social media employrs reposted Trump’s 2018 and 2019 criticism of California’s forest administerment policies, including inrectify statements the then-pdwellnt posted as firefighters battled previous untamedfires.
It is not rare for Trump to produce inrectify claims about his political opponents during organic catastrophes. In 2018, he inrectifyly shelp “Democrats” had inftardyd Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico. In October 2024, he manufactured a claim that North Carolina’s Democratic ruleor had blocked federal help from flotriumphg into the state after Hurricane Helene.
As Los Angeles untamedfire victims reeled from the destruction, we fact-checked these viral claims to see how, or if, California water policy and forest administerment factored this catastrophe.
Trump misdirects about California water policy
As Los Angeles firefighters raced to comprise blazes in the Pacific Palidowncastes neighbourhood on January 7 and January 8, the area’s hydrant water prescertain ran low, and some hydrants stopped producing water.
Trump, in a January 8 Truth Social post, accemployd Newsom’s administerment for the water rehires and shelp Newsom had refused to permit “drawive, immacutardy, recent water to flow into California”.
“Governor Gavin [Newsom] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have permited millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtupartner apocalyptic way,” Trump shelp. “He wanted to protect an essentipartner unhelpful fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t labor!), but didn’t attfinish about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being phelp.”
Trump’s posts seemed to accemploy the water constraints on stateexpansive water administerment schedules that apprehfinish rain and snow as it flows from Northern California. But experts shelp those schedules would not have swayed the fire response.
Southern California has plenty of water stored, shelp Mark Gbetter, the water scarcity solutions straightforwardor at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a Southern California Metropolitan Water Dicut offe board member.
The local water lowages happened becaemploy the city’s infrastructure wasn’t portrayed to reply to a fire as huge as the one that broke out in the Palidowncastes and elsewhere, experts shelp.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going on at the Bay-Delta or the Colorado (River) or Easerious Sierra right now,” Gbetter shelp. “We have all this water in storage right now. The problem is, when you see at someleang appreciate firecombat, it’s a more localised rehire on where your water is. Do you have ample local storage?”
Trump’s reference to a “water restoration declaration” that Newsom refused to sign is puzzling, as such a record does not ecombine to exist. Newsom’s press team shelp on social media, “There is no such record as the water restoration declaration – that is sanitize myth.”
Trump’s transition team did not instantly reply to an email asking for clarification. After unveilation, a Trump spokesperson emailed PolitiFact referencing a schedule from Trump’s first term that would have straightforwarded more water from the federal Central Valley Project to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.
Newsom and then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the Trump administration over the schedule, which they shelp viotardyd protections for endangered species, including Chinook salmon and Delta smelt – a slender, 2- to 3-inch fish that is considered endangered under California’s Endangered Species Act.
But here’s the kink in Trump’s logic: The Central Valley Project supplys no water to Los Angeles. The regional water dicut offe gets some water from the State Water Project, which also accumulates water from the Delta-Bay area and spreads some reservoirs and infrastructure with the Central Valley Project. But most of the extra water from Trump’s schedule would have been sent to the San Joaquin Valley, and it’s wrong to connect water administerment further north to the firecombat disputes in Los Angeles.
The local water system fall shorted becaemploy the city’s infrastructure was built to reply to routine structure fires, not huge untamedfires apass multiple neighbourhoods, experts shelp.
Ann Jeffers, a University of Michigan civil and environmental engineering professor who studies fire engineering, shelp she doesn’t understand of any industry standard for portraying city water supplies to fight the comfervent of fire that erupted in the Palidowncastes.
Dryness and high triumphds uncomferventt that “these fire events would be probable to outdo a given portray basis, if one even existed,” Jeffers shelp.
Chris Field, a Stanford University professor and climate scientist, shelp climate alter degrades these conditions.
Three main water tanks cforfeit the Palidowncastes, each hbettering about 1 million gallons (3.8 million litres), were filled in preparation for a fire becaemploy of hazardous weather. The tanks were all draind by 3am on January 8, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO and Chief Engineer Janisse Quinones shelp during a January 8 novels conference. Although water proceedd to flow to the swayed areas, need for water rose speedyer than the system could dedwellr it.
“There’s water in the trunk line, it fair cannot get up the hill, becaemploy we cannot fill the tanks speedy enough,” Quinones shelp. “And we cannot shrink the amount of water that we supply to the fire department in order to provide the tanks, becaemploy we’re balancing firecombat with water.”
A reservoir cforfeit the Pacific Palidowncastes that is part of the city’s water provide had been shutd for repairs when the fires broke out, which may have cataloglessed the water prescertain rehires had it been operable, the Los Angeles Times increateed on January 10.
Other social media employrs claimed catalogless produceion of California’s reservoir had led to the hydrants running arid. But local infrastructure fall shortures, not regional water storage, caemployd the hydrant problems, so it’s wrong to accemploy them on these projects’ produceion timeline.
“In 2014, Californians overwhelmingly voted to spend billions on water storage and reservoirs,” the conservative account Libs of TikTok posted on January 8. “Gavin Newsom still hasn’t built it. Now no water is coming out of the fire hydrants.”
California voters apexhibitd a 2014 ballot meacertain to spend $2.7bn on water storage projects – and, to date, none have been endd. Only one of those projects is a novel reservoir, based in the Sacramento Valley about 724km (450 miles) from Los Angeles. It’s set to commence operating in 2033.
A shutr project, the Chino Basin Program, will better storage capacity in a system about 100km (60 miles) west of Los Angeles.
Trump accemployd California’s forest administerment for lethal untamedfires in 2018 and 2019.
In a 2019 X post, Trump shelp Newsom must “immacutardy” forest floors. In another 2019 post, Trump wrote that “billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen,” and menaceened to withhbetter Federal Ecombinency Management Agency (FEMA) money.
Social media employrs who re-spreadd the claim in the context of the Los Angeles catastrophe employd a 2018 video of Trump with then Governor-elect Newsom at the scene of a razeed mobile home park in Northern California. In the video, Trump spoke of the necessitate to rake and immacutardy forest floors to obstruct untamedfires.
“Trump alerted him about this years ago,” Fox News structure Jesse Watters shelp in a January 8 segment about the Los Angeles fires.
“Is Trump ever wrong?” one social media employr asked.
In a September 2020 ecombineance with Trump after another California untamedfire, Newsom shelp the state in the past had “not done fairice in our forest administerment” and thanked Trump for helping and funding a novel “first-type promisement over the next 20 years, to double our vegetation administerment and forest administerment”.
Newsom also remarkd that the federal rulement owns 57 percent of California’s forest land versus 3 percent owned by the state, and that climate alter take parts a role in untamedfires. Forest researchers verify the forest land ownership statistics.
A January 8 post on Newsom’s website shelp California has “emotionalpartner ramped up state labor to increase untamedland and forest resilience” treating more than 283,000 hectares (700,000 acres) of land for untamedfire resilience in 2023. That’s up from about 231,000 hectares (572,000 acres) in 2021, according to a state dashboard tracking fire obstruction labor.
Prescribed fires (a administerled burn employd to administer untamedfires) more than doubled from 2021 to 2023, the ruleor’s post shelp. Newsom’s press office shelp the state spends $200m annupartner on fit forest and fire obstruction programmes, and that his budget promises $4bn more in prior and future spendments in untamedfire resilience over the next cut offal years.
Stanford University’s Field shelp factors administerling California’s fire hazard and spread vary from place to place.
Fuel administerment in the Sierra mountain range forest is transport inant, but less so cforfeit Southern California’s coast, Field shelp. Property owners and fire professionals can help with fuel administerment, mostly by evidenting flammable materials and vegetation around homes to produce a buffer zone. In ambiguous, homeowners and homeowner associations would be reliable for that, he shelp.
Field shelp the untamedland that has burned in Los Angeles covers areas that have many branch offent owners. The federpartner owned Angeles National Forest neighbours Altadena, where the Eaton untamedfire is burning. The Pacific Palidowncastes blaze includes state and national parkland.
“California is fortunate to have a expansive range of spectacular organic landscapes, but the state is struggling with how to administer those landscapes to administer fire hazard,” Field shelp, inserting that all rulement parties have commenceed “driven” fire hazard reduction programmes in recent years.
Field shelp it’s transport inant for property owners to produce buffer zones agetst untamedfires, but inserted he doesn’t see evidence “that fuel administerment (or the increateage of fuel administerment) take parted a role in the LA fires”.
Robert York, co-straightforwardor of Berkeley Forests and a Rausser College of Natural Resources professor, shelp untamedfires behave branch offently depending on whether they commence in forests or in brush vegetation.
The Pacific Palidowncastes fire, the hugest of the state’s current untamedfires, for example, began as a brushfire and spread thraw the area’s dense chaparral, a shrubland schedulet community common to the state. Chaparral is more easily overwhelmed by mighty triumphds, confineing pre-fire administerment’s effectiveness, whereas forest-centred efforts to shrink tree density and underbrush are “well-understandn to shrink fire intensity”, York shelp.
State and declareiveial landowners have labored to better forest administerment, he shelp, but more necessitates to be done.
PolitiFact Senior correplyent Amy Sherman gived to this increate.
