Q&A of the Day – Are California’s Policies to Blame for Wildfires?
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio Trump’s right. Aren’t Cali’s policies to blame for the making fires worse?
Bottom Line: The former and future president of the United States no longer tweets – he rarely ‘posts on X’, however he is as prolific as ever in perpetuating social media posts on his Truth Social platform. Over the past couple of days President-elect Trump issued a series of posts on Truth Social about the devastating California wildfires squarely placing blame in the process. His prolific posts (there were several about the California wildfires) included this message:
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. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!
So how much of what’s happened with the historic Southern California wildfires was potentially preventable? Let’s dig in starting with what we’ve known historically about wildfires and specifically California’s wildfires.
There’s one type of environmental disaster which has proven to be far more devastating than hurricanes and is almost completely man made. Fires. That’s even true in Florida – which is considered the most at risk for hurricanes in the country. Consider this...
According to the National Interagency Fire Center:
- An average of 64,100 wildfires occur annually in the US
And how many are the direct result of people?
- 62,200
According to a study by the University of Colorado, 97% of all wildfires since 1992 have been the direct result of people. Additionally, 59 million homes are at risk of wildfires in the US – that's equitable to those at risk of hurricanes. California is far and away the leading state for wildfire risk accounting for over 11% of wildfires occurring within the country. Most notably California has 1,278,214 housing units that are at ‘extreme’ risk of wildfires. By comparison, Colorado is second with 332,716 homes at ‘extreme’ risk.
The cause of the current Southern California wildfires is still under investigation according to Cal Fire. What we do know with certainty is that winds, which have peaked around 100 mph, have been behind the rapid spreading of the fires and historic devastation that’s already been realized in many communities. As for the role public policy has played in California’s wildfires...
In the early 2000’s a series of laws were passed limiting the ability to remove trees, including dead trees, even on one’s property, unless a tree was overhanging one’s property. That policy extended to state land as well effectively putting an end to prescribed burns. The policy has led to a proliferation of dead trees and underbrush catching fire that has been frequently documented over the past couple of decades.
As noted in 2009 by then Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich during the worst fire event in the county prior to the current one: The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.
While it remains to be seen how these fires started, and how public policies have played a role the current catastrophe, we’ll turn our attention towards the more recent public policy situation with Governor Newsom that President-elect Trump has drawn attention to.
In 2020, during the Trump administration, Trump issued an executive memo ordering water runoff from Northern California be diverted (from running into rivers that dump into the Pacific Ocean) south to help combat California’s regular drought conditions and support the state’s large central and southern populations as California hasn’t brought on a new aquifer within the state since 1979 – when the state’s population was 16 million fewer people than today. The Newsom administration sued to stop the diversion, however, citing a small, endangered fish, the delta smelt. That’s what’s likely on Trump’s mind as he’s gone after Newsom personally.
As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. Those are the facts.