Trump tweets on California wildfires spark confusion, debate

[webfact]

Trump tweets on California wildfires spark confusion, debate

By Steve Gorman

 

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a Make America Great Again rally in Olentangy Orange High School in Lewis Center, OH, U.S., August 4, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis

 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fire authorities insisted on Monday that they have ample water supplies to fight California's devastating wildfires, contrary to U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets that unspecified water diversions to the Pacific were making matters worse.

 

Officials from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, stressed that wild-land blazes are battled primarily by crews hacking away at dry brush with hand tools and bulldozers, not with water.

 

"Yes, we have plenty of water," CalFire Chief Scott McLean said by telephone, adding that the two largest blazes in California this week - the Carr Fire and the Mendocino Complex Fire - were each ringed by at least three major reservoirs.

 

He said the tweets, after Trump on Sunday approved a federal disaster declaration requested by Governor Jerry Brown for the fires, sparked a barrage of media queries to CalFire.

 

On Sunday, Trump tweeted, "California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren't allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!"

 

Then on Monday he tweeted, "Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals."

 

The White House did not respond to requests to clarify Trump’s tweets, and did not immediately respond when asked about Gleick’s comments.

 

Neither McLean nor Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for the Idaho-based fire agency, would address the tweets directly, but Gardetto said by telephone, "Most wildfire suppression efforts involve firefighters and boots on the ground."

 

Water, used in protecting homes and other structures and for dumping on flames from airplane tankers and helicopters, is critical but secondary to the larger manual efforts of clearing unburned vegetation to remove it as potential fuel around a fire's perimeter.

 

Peter Gleick, one of California's leading experts on Western water resources as president of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute, said that Trump appeared to be seizing on the wildfires to side with farmers on a separate debate over how to allocate California's finite water resources among farmers, cities, fish and wildlife.

 

"There's nothing that California water policy has done that makes these fires worse or more difficult to fight," Gleick said. Trump's references to diverting water to the oceans was "completely backwards," he said.

 

"The water that reaches the ocean is what's left after we've diverted most of the water away for cities and farms, and what little is left is barely enough for California's aquatic ecosystems and the fisheries," he said.

 

The White House did not respond to requests to clarify Trump’s tweets, and did not immediately respond when asked about Gleick’s comments.

 

Trump's suggestion that environmental laws were somehow compounding wildfire woes drew derision on Twitter.

 

Critics said his tweets ignored the greater wildfire frequency and severity experienced in California and other Western states from extreme drought and sustained periods of hot, dry weather, in keeping with the forecasts of climate scientists.

 

Fire officials have said that 95 percent of all wildfires are caused by humans, from camp fires left unattended to careless smoking, to sparks from vehicles and improperly maintained power lines.

 

(Reporting by Steve Gorman Editing by Bill Tarrant)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-08-07

[stevenl]

Again giving his opinion on something he knows nothing about, and refusing to ask people with more knowledge.

[mtls2005]

In case you've ever wondered what kind of idiot would tweet "fire" in a crowded theater to distract from his own misdeeds, I give you this specimen.

 

 

 

 

[zaphod reborn]

Trump doesn't understand California water management.  The issue has always been whether water should be diverted to irrigate the Owens Valley in the south (so that Gallo can grow wine grapes), or allowed to run its natural course, to preserve the unique environment in Northern California.  There never has been any discussion of somehow damming waterways in the north so that the north can have some protection from wild fires (not even sure this is a viable option).  Wish the wild fires would spread to the White House (burn it down again) and let Trump blame it on the Canadians.  

 

 

[xylophone]

9 minutes ago, zaphod reborn said:

Trump doesn't understand California water management.

Trump doesn't understand much about anything...…..period!

[freebyrd]

When I was a 16 year old soldier one of the first things I was taught was to "put your brain in gear before you open your mouth". If this horrible excuse for a human being hadn't had those "bone spurs" and had done some discilplined time in uniform, serving his "beloved flag", the world could be a more sensible, happier and well informed place today.

[Jingthing]

This from a man that broke from the Paris climate accord. It's just politics. He hates Jerry Brown. He knows California is the center of the anti-"trump" resistance. What a disgusting, destructive BABY. Not a leader. A disgrace and an embarrassment to all decent Americans. 

[Enoon]

 

The Beast is among us.

 

 

 

 

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, freebyrd said:

When I was a 16 year old soldier one of the first things I was taught was to "put your brain in gear before you open your mouth". If this horrible excuse for a human being hadn't had those "bone spurs" and had done some discilplined time in uniform, serving his "beloved flag", the world could be a more sensible, happier and well informed place today.

Would like to think so freebyrd, but when the base material is non existent in the first place, there's nothing to work on, so I doubt even the US armed forces could have made an impact in that empty space.

 

A  reprehensible, spoilt, childish clown.

[tigermoth]

Trump has proven that any brainless idiot eith a few dollars can become president. The only thing he has achieved is make the USA the most laughed about country in the world and probably shamed all Americans. Why he hasn't suddenly ceased to exist is a mystery to all of us.

[Tug]

What a dumb ass just running his big mouth hoping to devide us further has no understanding at all is jealous of California’s success anything to pander to his(base)

[Boss]

The people has the leader they voted for -  you MUST get that maniax out asap before he make serious problems for all of us. .....

Edited August 7, 2018 by Boss
spelling error

[Jingthing]

The people has the leader they voted for -  you MUST get that maniax out asap before he make serious problems for all of us. .....

Too late.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Silurian]

Did someone just finish watching Chinatown?

 

[simple1]

19 hours ago, stevenl said:

Again giving his opinion on something he knows nothing about, and refusing to ask people with more knowledge.

Has trump acknowledged the efforts for firefighters and expressed empathy for the dead? Australia has sent firefighters to California as I would guess have other allies, has Trump acknowledged foreign contributions? 

[thedivezone]

7 hours ago, Silurian said:

Did someone just finish watching Chinatown?

 

Haha, nice one, wait for the "We can't have people walking around cutting up people's noses in a dispute over water" tweet :

 

[spidermike007]

19 hours ago, freebyrd said:

When I was a 16 year old soldier one of the first things I was taught was to "put your brain in gear before you open your mouth". If this horrible excuse for a human being hadn't had those "bone spurs" and had done some discilplined time in uniform, serving his "beloved flag", the world could be a more sensible, happier and well informed place today.

So very true. Alot of his problems come from never having to face live ammunitions as a younger man. After wetting his pants daily, for a year, he might have grown some humility. Instead this empty suit endeavored to rob as many people as he possibly could in this lifetime, to create a fortune. He is a failure on every measurable level, except perhaps net worth.

 

What he has said about the California fires are both lies and just uneducated nonsense. The dems are to blame for everything that is not perfect in this world. 

 

I have a friend who lives in Redding. He has a gorgeous 5,000 sf home, right in the forest. Two weeks before the fire he went out and cleared all the undergrowth and brush from around his home. Took him days of work. When the fire approached his home, it surrounded it, but the home was left fully intact. Most of his neighbors home's burned down. Eliminate the fuel, and it is harder for the fire to burn. The biggest issue here, is the great deal of rainfall that they had two years ago. It created a massive amount of undergrowth, which became fuel for this fire. Sorry to have to inform the draft dodging dull don, but the dems were neither responsible for the rain, nor the fire. 

 

Those that continue to insist that man made climate warming does not exist are simply living in some sort of non scientific bubble. 

[utalkin2me]

It amazes me we actually have the knowledge to curtail these fires and refuse to use it. 

 

The way to control these fires is prescribed burns. They do it in the ozark national park. It has been well studied and even shown the burns to have increased genetic diversity, which is very interesting. So, in the end it is win win. But, they wont do this... we always call Thailand idiots but the rest of the world is just as stupid, if not worse. If thais found something that worked at least they would keep doing it. 

Edited August 8, 2018 by utalkin2me

[stevenl]

9 minutes ago, utalkin2me said:

It amazes me we actually have the knowledge to curtail these fires and refuse to use it. 

 

The way to control these fires is prescribed burns. They do it in the ozark national park. It has been well studied and even shown the burns to have increased genetic diversity, which is very interesting. So, in the end it is win win. But, they wont do this... we always call Thailand idiots but the rest of the world is just as stupid, if not worse. If thais found something that worked at least they would keep doing it. 

From the OP:

" secondary to the larger manual efforts of clearing unburned vegetation to remove it as potential fuel around a fire's perimeter. ".

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, utalkin2me said:

we always call Thailand idiots but the rest of the world is just as stupid, if not worse. If thais found something that worked at least they would keep doing it. 

Like corruption you mean...…..?

[utalkin2me]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

From the OP:

" secondary to the larger manual efforts of clearing unburned vegetation to remove it as potential fuel around a fire's perimeter. ".

That sounds like burning the fire's perimeter during the fire. The prescribed burns take place before the fires occur, although I did not read the full article so maybe i misunderstood you. 

 

It would be hard to do controlled or prescribed burns everywhere, but we could certainly do them in areas that would help prevent homes from being burnt down. 

 

Another amazing strategy is emplyed by Mexico. They don't have these out of control fire problems. Why? What do they do?mWhen there is a fire in mexico, nobody shows up, they just let it burn lol. That is a real problem solver let me tell you. It was crazy when i was in san diego back in lord knows when we looked at the fire maps in sd and in mexico, and i mean it is amazing how effective their sophisticated policy is lol. 

[mrwebb8825]

On 8/8/2018 at 11:22 AM, stevenl said:

From the OP:

" secondary to the larger manual efforts of clearing unburned vegetation to remove it as potential fuel around a fire's perimeter. ".

They aren't "clearing" it by setting preventitive fires. They are digging it up and hauling it away which really won't stop anything. If they are really so effective, why has it burned and is still burning millions of acres? Wild fires spread as much by wind blown ember from treetops as from undergrowth. How far should they haul each load to prevent the wind from reaching it?

You don't think closer monitoring and dumping huge amounts of water on it when it first started would have been a good idea?

Always wondered why a fire needs to burn a few thousand acres before anyone starts doing anything.