1). “Fire Weather: The wildfires in California replicate the massive fire storms in the boreal forest in Canada and Siberia, the lungs of the earth. Our addiction to fossil fuel has ignited an age of fire”, Jan 12, 2025, Chris Hedges. The Chris Hedges Report, at < https://chrishedges.substack.
2). “LA fires live: Southern California braced for ‘extremely critical fire conditions’ as life threatening winds pick up pace”, Jan 14, 2025, Various authors & anon, The Guardian, at < https://www.theguardian.com/
3). “Republican congressman calls for halting of disaster relief to California: Warren Davidson of Ohio says aid should be withheld until the state ravaged by wildfires reforms forestry management”, Jan 12, 2025, Edward Helmore, The Guardian, at < https://www.theguardian.com/
4). “Trump’s critiques of the Los Angeles fires, explained: Donald Trump is using one of his most frequent political cudgels against Gov. Gavin Newsom as the Los Angeles fires continue burning”, Jan 9, 2025, Camille von Kaenel, Politico, at < https://www.politico.com/news/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: Hedges in Item 1)., “Fire Weather: The wildfires ….”, gets right to the real basis of the California fire problem, i.e., the changes in climate being driven by the burning of fossil fuels & other human activities. As an important exemplar of this he discusses the horrors of the Athabascan Tar Sands operation in Alberta, Canada; where they had their own horrific wildfires that ravaged the areas near the Tar Sands mines noting that:
“ …. some of the planet’s worst wildfires, including the 2016 Wood Buffalo (aka Fort McMurray) wildfire, which consumed nearly 1.5 million acres and which was not fully extinguished for 15 months. The monster wildfire, which was, according to journalist John Vaillant, about 950 degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than Venus — destroyed thousands of homes and forced the evacuation of 88,000 people. The fire ripped into Fort McMurray with such ferocity and speed that residents barely escaped in their cars as buildings and houses were instantly vaporized. Flames shot 300 feet into the air. Fireballs rolled up into the smoke column for another 1,000 feet. It was a harbinger of the new normal.”
A variety of scientists, including the heroic James Hansen, warned that if the Athabascan Tar Sands were fully extracted it would seal the fate of the Earth and of our increasingly fragile civilization. (See Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near, 2008, James Hansen speaking to Congress, at < http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
Line 3 Map
Hedges ended his essay with this final paragraph:
“We have harnessed the concentrated energy of 300 million years and set it alight. We are addicted to fossil fuels. But it is a suicide pact. We ignore the freakish weather patterns and disintegration of the planet, retreating into our electronic hallucinations, pretending the inevitable is not inevitable. This vast cognitive dissonance, fed to us by mass culture, makes us the most self-deluded population in human history. The cost of this self-delusion will be mass death. The devastation in California is the harbinger of the apocalypse.” (Emphasis added)
One thing has been significantly different with these latest wildfires in the Los Angeles area. These fires caused significant damage to upper income people; Pacific Pallisades devastated by fire, and now Brentwood that is being threatened by fires are upper income areas. Previous wildfires mostly burnt up areas where formerly more-or-less comfortable middle class people now live at places outside of the most prosperous coastal regions. The fires in Southern California are likely not done, high winds are developing again and the area is extremely dry with only 2% of typical precipitation falling in the “rainy season” that occurs in the late fall and winter.
In Item 2)., “LA fires live: ….”, the grim reality that the fires are likely not over in Southern California is discussed in a series of articles posted there. The conditions expected for the next 2 days are very dangerous and the U.S. Weather Service has posted a “Red Flag Warning” through Wednesday. The article notes that:
“The US National Weather Service has put in place a Red Flag weather warning across south-west California.
“A Red Flag Warning means warm temperatures, very low humidities, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.
“There are Particularly Dangerous Situation warnings colored with a purple outline (see map below). These are rare warnings aimed at seizing attention.
“The PDS warning is in place from 4am Pacific Time until noon on Wednesday due to damaging north-east to east winds and low humidities in certain areas.
“Red Flag warnings will be in effect for much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Wednesday.”
The response of the American Far-Right is typically ruthless and short-sighted, and is shown in Item 3)., “Republican congressman ….”, and Item 4)., “Trump’s critiques of the Los Angeles fires, ….”. It is a fact that the Southern 1/3 of the U.S. is significantly more disaster prone than is the classic Northern and Northeastern part of the country. The Post-WW 2 Trucking, Computer, and Biotech Capitalism of the Southern Tier has long been subsidized by the North and Northeast. Democratic Senators complained after many Southern Right-Wing Republicans tried to block FEMA and other relief funds for the New York area after Super Storm Sandy ravaged that are. Prominent among those who voted to not supply relief funds was Ron DeSantis, during his first term as a member of the House of Representatives. The estimated cost of recovery is now in the $200 - $250 Billion and could rise significantly if there are several more days of major fires, that looks likely.
Southern California is the most overdeveloped and highest population area in the Sunbelt. Of course places like Phoenix Arizona, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia and Miami and Tampa/St. Petersburg Florida are all growing and developing marginal land into residential and commercial real estate at a prodigous rate. And, unfortunately, the U.S. is just one place that has not taken the needed measures to control Global Warming, there are some places that taken more effective measures, by providing good public transportation and the like. But overall the response of human society has been inadequate.
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Fire Weather
The apocalyptic wildfires that have erupted in the boreal forest in Siberia, the Russian Far East and Canada, climate scientists repeatedly warned, would inevitably move southwards as rising global temperatures created hotter, more fire-prone landscapes. Now they have. The failures in California, where Los Angeles has had no significant rainfall in eight months, are not only failures of preparedness — the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, decreased funds for the fire department by $17 million — but a failure globally to halt the extraction of fossil fuel. The only surprise is that we are surprised. Welcome to the age of the “Pyrocene” where cities burn and water does not come out of the hydrants.
The boreal forest is the largest forest system on earth. It circumnavigates the Northern Hemisphere. It stretches across Canada and Alaska. It travels through Russia where it is known as “the taiga.” It reaches into Scandinavia, picks up again in Iceland and Newfoundland, and moves westward across Canada, completing the circle. The boreal forest has more sources of freshwater than any other biome, including the Amazon Rainforest. It is the lungs of the earth, able to store 208 billion tons of carbon, or 11 percent of the world’s total. Yet it has been steadily degraded, assaulted by deforestation and the extraction of the tar sands in Alberta, Canada — which produces 58 percent of Canada’s oil and is the U.S.’s largest source of imported oil — man-made drought and rising temperatures from carbon emissions.
Almost two million acres of boreal forest have been destroyed by extraction industries and timber companies. They have scraped away the topsoil and left behind poisoned wastelands. The production and consumption of one barrel of tar sands crude oil releases between 17 and 21 percent more carbon dioxide than the production and consumption of a standard barrel of oil. The oil is transported thousands of miles to refineries as far away as Houston, through pipelines and in tractor-trailer trucks or railroad cars.
This vast assault, perhaps the largest such project in the world, has accelerated the release of carbon emissions that, unchecked, will render the planet uninhabitable for humans and most other species. There is a direct line from the destruction of the boreal forest and the raging wildfires in California.
The boreal forest system has, for over a decade, seen some of the planet’s worst wildfires, including the 2016 Wood Buffalo (aka Fort McMurray) wildfire, which consumed nearly 1.5 million acres and which was not fully extinguished for 15 months. The monster wildfire, which was, according to journalist John Vaillant, about 950 degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than Venus — destroyed thousands of homes and forced the evacuation of 88,000 people. The fire ripped into Fort McMurray with such ferocity and speed that residents barely escaped in their cars as buildings and houses were instantly vaporized. Flames shot 300 feet into the air. Fireballs rolled up into the smoke column for another 1,000 feet. It was a harbinger of the new normal.
More than 100 climate scientists have called for a moratorium on the extraction of tar sands oil. Former NASA scientist James Hansen warned over a decade ago that if the tar sands oil is fully exploited, it will be “game over” for the planet. He has also called for the CEOs of fossil fuel companies to be tried for “high crimes against humanity and nature.”
It is hard to get a sense of the scale of the destruction unless you visit, as I did in 2019, the Alberta tar sands. I spent time with the 500 inhabitants of Beaver Lake, the Cree reserve, most of whom are impoverished and live in small, boxy prefabricated houses. They are victims of the latest iteration of colonial exploitation, one centered on the extraction of oil that is poisoning the water, soil and air around them.
Beaver Lake, as I wrote at the time, is surrounded by over 35,000 oil and natural gas wells and thousands of miles of pipelines, access roads and seismic lines. The area also contains the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, which has appropriated huge tracts of traditional territory from the native inhabitants to test weapons. Giant processing plants, along with gargantuan extraction machines, including bucket wheelers that are over half a mile long and draglines that are several stories high, ravage hundreds of thousands of acres.
“These stygian centers of death belch sulfurous fumes, nonstop, and send fiery flares into the murky sky,” I wrote. “The air has a metallic taste. Outside the processing centers, there are vast toxic lakes known as tailings ponds, filled with billions of gallons of water and chemicals related to the oil extraction, including mercury and other heavy metals, carcinogenic hydrocarbons, arsenic and strychnine. The sludge from the tailings ponds is leaching into the Athabasca River, which flows into the Mackenzie, the largest river system in Canada.”
Nothing in this moonscape, by the end, will support life. “The migrating birds that alight at the tailings ponds die in huge numbers,” I noted. “So many birds have been killed that the Canadian government has ordered extraction companies to use noise cannons at some of the sites to scare away arriving flocks. Around these hellish lakes, there is a steady boom-boom-boom from the explosive devices.”
The water in much of northern Alberta is no longer safe for human consumption. Drinking water has to be trucked in for the Beaver Lake reserve. Cancer and respiratory diseases are rampant.
…mile upon mile of black and ransacked earth pocked with stadium-swallowing pits and dead, discolored lakes guarded by scarecrows in cast-off rain gear and overseen by flaming stacks and fuming refineries, the whole laced together by circuit board mazes of dirt roads and piping, patrolled by building-sized machines that, enormous as they are, appear dwarfed by the wastelands they have made. The tailings ponds alone cover well over a hundred square miles and contain more than a quarter of a trillion gallons of contaminated water and effluent from the bitumen upgrading process. There is no place for this toxic sludge to go except into the soil, or the air, or, if one of the massive earthen dams should fail, into the Athabasca River. For decades, cancer rates have been abnormally high in the downstream community.
The out-of-control fire storms and blizzard of swirling embers, he chronicles, are what we are witnessing in California, a state which normally experiences wildfires during June, July, and August. Neighborhoods burn “to their foundations beneath a towering pyrocumulus cloud typically found over erupting volcanoes” and fires generate “hurricane-force winds and lightning that ignites fires miles away.”
These cyclone-like fires resemble the firebombing of Hamburg or Dresden during World War Two, rather than forest fires of the past. They are almost impossible to control.
You can see an interview I did with Vaillant here.
“Fire wants to climb,” Vaillan told me. “[W]e all know heat rises. It’s rising up into the treetops and it’s sucking in wind from underneath because it needs oxygen all the time. So the fire, it’s helpful to think of it as a breathing entity. It’s pulling oxygen in from all around and rising into the architecture of the trees and so there’s this rushing chimney-like effect. Where the fire is in a way happiest, most energetic, most charismatic, and dynamic is up in the treetops, and then it’s pulling in wind from down below. As that heat builds, as the whole tree is engaged, you have this increasing heat and increasing wind which then builds on itself so it becomes almost a self-perpetuation machine. If you have hot enough, dry enough, [and] windy enough conditions, those flames will then begin to leap from treetop to treetop.”
The heat releases vapor, hydrocarbons from the fuels around it, which is why we see “explosive fireballs and massive surges of flame coming out of big boreal fires because that’s the superheated vapor rising up and then ignited. Imagine an empty gas can — even though there might not be a lot of liquid in it, it will still explode in a spectacular fashion. Well, that’s really what the fire is enabling in the forest, for all those hydrocarbons to release in this gaseous cloud that then ignites. That’s when you see, especially a boreal fire, in full run. It’s called a Rank 6. It’s comparable to a Category 5 hurricane.”
When houses and buildings become very hot they, like trees, release hydrocarbons. Vaillant calls modern buildings “incendiary devices.” They are packed with petrochemicals and often sheathed with petroleum products like vinyl siding and tar shingles. When fires push temperatures to over 1,400 degrees the vinyl siding, tar shingles, glues and laminates in the plywood vaporize.
“The modern home is in fact more flammable than a log cabin or a 19th-century home that’s made mostly out of wood, mostly furnished with cotton-stuffed furniture or horse hair stuffed furniture, things that we think of as antiques now,” Vaillant said. “But the modern home is really in a way a giant gas can and we don’t think of that when it’s 75 degrees. But when it’s 300 degrees because of the radiant heat coming off a fire, or 1,000 degrees because of the radiant heat coming off a boreal wildfire, it turns into something completely different.”
“All of us alive today have grown up in the petroleum age,” Vaillant said. “It feels normal to us the way I think people smoking on airplanes and in doctors’ waiting rooms felt normal to people in the 1950s. We’re completely habituated to it, to the point that it’s invisible to us. But if you really stop and think about how petroleum is rendered and what it in fact is, it’s literally toxic at every stage of its life. From the moment it’s drawn from the ground through the incredibly polluting refining process, into our cars and where it’s burned…Petroleum will kill you in every form, whether as a liquid, as a toxic spill, as a gas, as an emission. It’s strange to think that we have surrounded ourselves and persuaded ourselves that this profoundly toxic substance is an ally to us and an enabler of this wonderful lifestyle that we live that is now being compromised in measurable and visible ways by that very energy source.”
We have harnessed the concentrated energy of 300 million years and set it alight. We are addicted to fossil fuels. But it is a suicide pact. We ignore the freakish weather patterns and disintegration of the planet, retreating into our electronic hallucinations, pretending the inevitable is not inevitable. This vast cognitive dissonance, fed to us by mass culture, makes us the most self-deluded population in human history. The cost of this self-delusion will be mass death. The devastation in California is the harbinger of the apocalypse.
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LA fires live: officials warn winds still ‘tremendous threat’ as California braces for ‘extremely critical fire conditions’
Firefighters expect a difficult and treacherous day amid dangerous winds as Red Flag weather warning is in place with winds of up to 70mph forecast
Winds still pose 'tremendous threat', LA officials say
While peak winds today are not expected to be as strong as last week’s wind event, they still pose a “tremendous threat”, Los Angeles officials said.
“As we enter into another period of dangerously high winds, we remain deployed and ready to assist with any additional evacuations should that need arise” said Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell.
He added, “And if you’re asked to evacuate, please listen to all evacuation orders as they are meant as a life saving measure.”
All Malibu schools in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District will remain closed today, officials said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath added that all Santa Monica campuses will be open today.
Horvath said that she has been in touch with the Santa Monica Mayor who is closely monitoring the situation.
Over 40,000 applications received by FEMA for California fire aid
FEMA has received over 40,000 applications from those affected by the California fires, Robert Fenton, the Regional Administrator for FEMA Region 9 said.
FEMA has already provided over $8 million in serious needs assistance, Fenton said.
“I encourage every head of household to apply to FEMA assistance,” he said, adding that not every member of the family has to apply, just the head of the household.
For renters, where there are multiple renters for a property, you can each apply individually, he said.
Officials urge people to be prepared to evacuate if needed.
“We are giving this fire everything we’ve got” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said. “This is a particularly dangerous situation, from now through tomorrow, the strongest winds will be this evening, and we ask everyone to get prepared now to evacuate.”
The libraries in Los Angeles County have FEMA staff available to provide assistance, Horvath added.
“Yesterday, I signed an executive directive to begin to lay the foundation policy wise for the rebuilding effort” Bass said.
“We’re going to make it through these next few days, but we want to begin to think about how we rebuild the massive destruction that I saw from the air” the Mayor added. “We don’t want people burdened by red tape and bureaucracy.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said that she did an aerial tour of the impacted areas yesterday.
“The massive, massive destruction is unimaginable until you actually see it” Bass said.
After the aerial tour, Bass said that she spoke with firefighters who have been on the job for 25, 30 years, who told her that they had “never seen destruction like this.”
“They have never seen wind so fierce in Los Angeles and California” Bass added.
Official urges mask use as high winds expected to blow ash from Palisades fire
Anish Mahajan, the chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County health department, said that a wind blown dust advisory has been issued due to the strong winds expected on Tuesday.
“High winds may disperse the ashes from the Palisades eaten and other fire burn scars” Mahajan said. “Wind blown ash from burn structures may contain higher air toxic levels if you see the ash, take precautions to reduce your exposure.”
Mahajan urged people to wear N95 or P100 masks if they are in an area affected by ash.
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Republican congressman calls for halting of disaster relief to California
Warren Davidson of Ohio says aid should be withheld until the state ravaged by wildfires reforms forestry management
A Republican US congressman from Ohio has called for federal disaster relief to be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices that some blame for the rapid spread of wind-fanned fires that broke on Tuesday.
Warren Davidson’s remarks to Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday came as California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, urged officials to avoid politicizing the response to the blazes which had killed people and destroyed thousands of homes.
Davidson’s comments came in the context of a spending bill that Congress would need to pass before March to prevent a government shutdown would include disaster relief for California.
Davidson pointed to the American Relief Act, 2025 – passed in December – that contributed $110bn to disaster relief for areas affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene, including North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Other disaster-affected areas were also included.
The congressman said that Congress will “need to address fires” as it had with the previous hurricane damage, “but … if they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their policies” with respect to forestry management.
“I mean, we support the people that are plagued by disaster, but we have to put pressure on the California government to change course here.”
The politicization of the Los Angeles fires, which started almost as soon as they took hold, show signs of intensifying in the aftermath. Donald Trump – who begins a second presidency on 20 January – weighed in, alluding to his having accused state leaders of “gross mismanagement” of forests in 2018 after wildfires devastated Malibu and Paradise, California.
At the time, Newsom defended California’s wildfire prevention efforts while criticizing the federal government for not doing enough to help protect the state. “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation”, Newsom told Trump in a post on X.
Trump more recently accused the Democratic-controlled state of withholding water from northern parts of the state to southern California as part of environmental efforts to help protect a small fish – the Delta smelt – and blamed environmentalists for hampering the state’s fire response.
But Friday, Newsom temporarily sought to put that dispute to one side, inviting Trump to visit areas affected by the fire disaster and to meet with first responders, firefighters and “Americans” affected by the catastrophe.
“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans – displaced from their homes and fearful for the future – deserve to see all of us working in their best interests to ensure a fast recovery and rebuild.”
But hours later, Newsom amplified comments critical of Trump in an interview with Pod Save America in which he rejected Trump’s claim that water is being withheld to save the endangered fish, calling the messaging “delusional” and “a consistent mantra from Trump going back years and years, and it’s reinforced over and over within the right wing ... and it’s profoundly ignorant”.
Newsom said fears that Trump could try to withhold federal relief funds from California was reasonable. “He’s done it in the past, not just here in California,” he said, and pointed to prior efforts in Puerto Rico, Utah, Connecticut and Georgia. “The rhetoric is very familiar, it’s increasingly acute, and obviously we all have reason to be concerned about.”
Newsom added that Trump’s assertions about a state water project and the delta smelt were a “salad, it’s the form and substance of a fog, it’s made-up, it’s delusional”.
Trump’s claims, Newsom added, were “sort of an indelible misinformation that’s he sort of manifested, a falsehood, and he decided to bring it into this crisis in a profoundly demeaning and damaging way”.
Joe Biden has already approved a disaster declaration for the southern California fires, committing the federal government to covering all of the fire management and debris removal costs for six months. But with days left in Biden’s presidency, the federal recovery assistance that California receives will soon be up to Trump and a Congress controlled by his fellow Republicans.
Newsom thanked Biden – his fellow Democrat – for having “approved our major disaster declaration”. According to Politico, in his letter to Trump, Newsom wrote Biden’s action was “a strong indication of the partnership California needs and appreciates with any federal administration”.
“However,” Newsom added, “the threat to lives and property remains acute. Higher-than-normal winds of up to 70 miles per hour are still forecast for the next several days, and more extreme winds are likely early next week, with no change to dry conditions.”
According to Politico, an unnamed Trump official downplayed the idea that he would withhold aid to the state.
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Trump’s critiques of the Los Angeles fires, explained
Donald Trump is using one of his most frequent political cudgels against Gov. Gavin Newsom as the Los Angeles fires continue burning.
Firefighters were still struggling to contain several wind-fueled fires in the Los Angeles area Thursday evening. | Apu Gomes/Getty Images
As historic fires rip through the Los Angeles area, President-elect Donald Trump is demanding Gov. Gavin Newsom “open up the water main” and allow “beautiful, clean, freshwater to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!”
At first glance, it seems to make sense. Why wouldn’t the leader of a state whose northern regions are currently enjoying above-average winter precipitation redirect water south to quench the burning metropolis as its fire hydrants run dry?
To start, there isn’t some central spigot nestled in the Sierra foothills that Newsom can just use a giant wrench to turn on. Then there’s the fact that firefighters were more hamstrung by the raging Santa Ana winds than empty hydrants due to a lack of water from Northern California.
Read on for a detailed explanation from our resident California water expert of the state’s complex water system and a brief history of Trump’s fixation with the issue.
What’s up with the ‘water restoration declaration?’
On Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed 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 virtually apocalyptic way.”
Newsom’s communications director shot back: “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration — that is pure fiction.”
Is it? Not quite. Trump was referring to a real document, even if he used an unknown name for it that left even the most astute California water officials scratching their heads. Karoline Leavitt, the president-elect’s press secretary, explained the reference by pointing to a five-year-old legal showdown between Newsom and Trump over how to manage the state and federal systems of pumps, reservoirs and canals that move water around California.
In short, the two disagree about how much water should be pumped out of the state’s main rivers, which combine in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, to the much-drier farms of the Central Valley and cities of Southern California, and how much water should be kept in the ecosystem to keep declining fish populations alive, including the Delta smelt, a frequent Trump target. Their separate plans for the pumps make only marginal differences in actual water deliveries, but have taken on a political life of their own.
The conflict peaked in 2020, when Trump unveiled the “record of decision” cementing his version of the rules at a rally in the Central Valley — only to be sued by Newsom, citing harm to the environment.
“That was the last significant water policy decision made during his first term in which both President Trump and Gov. Newsom took a personal interest,” said Tom Birmingham, the former general manager of Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural irrigation district in the country that sided with Trump in that battle.
Is there a water main in Northern California?
No. Newsom would be hard-pressed, as Trump suggested on Truth Social Thursday, to “immediately go to Northern California and open up the water main, and let the water flow into his dry, starving burning State, instead of having it go out into the Pacific Ocean.”
However, Southern California’s cities do depend on snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada mountains, home to the world-famous Yosemite National Park, and the Delta pumps for about 30 percent of their water supplies. Another 20 percent comes from the Colorado River and 50 percent originates from local supplies, like groundwater and recycling.
A lot of water in California does flow into the Pacific — much of it is reserved for environmental uses, which keeps rivers flowing so they’re fresh enough to provide tap water to cities and keep endangered fish populations alive. Overall, water use in California breaks down roughly to 10 percent for communities, 40 percent for agriculture and 50 percent for the environment, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California’s analysis of state data.
What’s the origin story of Trump’s obsession with California water?
This isn’t the first time Trump has used H2O as a cudgel against Newsom. He’s also threatened to withhold disaster aid unless Newsom goes his way on water, saying at a Southern California campaign stop last year that if the governor “doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires.” (“Those papers” presumably refer to the aforementioned water restoration declaration).
The president-elect’s interest in the Golden State’s water dilemma likely dates back to a 2016 tour of the agriculturally rich Central Valley with former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters.
Trump’s frequent references to the fight show “the California water issue has a very special place in his heart, in his head,” said Johnny Amaral, the chief operating officer for the Friant Water Authority, which serves Central Valley farmers, and Nunes’ former chief of staff.
“He talks frequently about the visit he made to the Central Valley in 2016 before the election where Devin was taking him around and showing him farmland,” Amaral added. “It warms our heart a little bit that he still talks about a 30-minute or hour drive around the east side.”
Nunes was trying to impress upon Trump that farmers in the Central Valley, a region that trends conservative, need more water from the state and federal water pumps in the north. He was clearly persuasive.
But how’s this related to the LA fires?
It’s not. Much of Southern California is in a drought right now, according to federal statistics, because of a dry start to California’s typically wet winter. But it’s not hugely lacking in imported water from Northern California, which, in contrast, has had relatively average precipitation so far. Levels at reservoirs across the state, including Southern California’s largest reservoir, Diamond Valley Lake, are currently at or above historic levels.
LA’s fire hydrants ran dry Tuesday night because there was “tremendous demand,” Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said Wednesday. Water pressure fell as a result: Supplies at the city’s three million-gallon water tanks that feed Pacific Palisades tapped out by 3 a.m. after firefighters started battling the blaze Tuesday, and backup water had to be trucked into the area.
How are Democratic leaders responding?
At a White House briefing Thursday, President Joe Biden offered an explanation for dry hydrants. He said power was cut to local water pumps to avoid utility lines causing more conflagrations. Fire officials are now bringing in generators for the pumps, Biden said.
On CNN Wednesday night, Newsom accused Trump of playing politics and trying to divide the country over the tragic fires. Also Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the water shortages on the unprecedented scope of the disaster, which is slated to be the costliest in U.S. history.
Debra Kahn and Julia Marsh contributed to this report.
