Trump gets everything wrong about fire...and about so much else
- Aug 6, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 7, 2024
August 6: On This Day In 2018
The Megadrought in the Western U.S. was the worst in 1,200 years. Among other harms, that dryness contributed to unprecedented, huge, uncontrolled fires which destroyed thousands of homes and burned several million acres in the West. These fires even had national impacts, as their smoke often travels completely across our country, where the black carbon muddies the skies and creates a “pink sun” on the east coast.
OTDI 2018 Trump knew exactly who to blame for the unprecedented woes: The state government of California! Rather than comfort the victims, he argued the people were short on water because they were “foolishly” diverting rivers into the Pacific. (That’s the first Nonsense.)
Of course he didn’t bother mentioning human-caused climate change, which most scientists have determined is a significant factor in the drought. (That’s the second Nonsense.)
Trump spent a lot of social media energy on this subject throughout the 2018 fire season, taking particular care to blame the states run by Democratic governors. In fact, most of those fires were burning on Federal lands—in other words, forests which the Trump Administration was in charge of. (That’s the third Nonsense.)
After a particularly horrible incident that destroyed most of the town of Paradise, CA, he visited the site. There he weirdly asserted that these types of fires could have been prevented by raking the forest floors. (That’s the fourth Nonsense.)
He added that they rake them in Finland, with much success. The Finns were baffled to hear that.
Click here for additional funny Scandinavian mockery.
Btw: California contains about as many acres of forest as there are acres of all land in the entire state of New York. Get busy with those garden rakes, Californians!
Get Weirder; Dive Deeper
Politico described the bewilderment over Trump's tweets
NPR details the historic nature of the drought
The SF Chronicle chronicled Trump’s analysis of the drought
Politico mocked the raking suggestion and pointed out that most of CA fires were on federal land
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump gets everything wrong about forest fires, raking