President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that the wildfires hitting California 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."
Trump said the water is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean and also called for clearing trees to stop the fires from spreading.
The tweet came a day after Gov. Jerry Brown called on Trump to help the state deal with the deadly and destructive wildfire season.
Fire officials dispute this claim.
Water to fight fires comes from lakes, ponds and reservoirs, which are in good shape.
"We have plenty of water to fight these fires," said Battalion Chief Jonathan Cox, a Cal Fire spokesman, noting that the Mendocino Complex Fire, threatening to become the biggest fire in recorded California history, burns between two lakes, Lake Mendocino and Clear Lake.
The biggest problem in responding to California wildfire is hotter weather and drier vegetation creating ideal conditions for fires to start, and making them harder to contain, Cox said. Fires are fought in various ways: fire lines are cut by hand or bulldozer; retardant is dropped by aircraft; and water is deployed by engines, water tenders and helicopters that haul massive buckets to dip water from ponds and lakes and dump it onto flames.
Trump also advised California in a tweet to "tree clear to stop fire spreading!"
The matter has been much debated in recent years, with the timber industry in favor and environmentalists generally opposed on the grounds that thinning trees in theory might work out to clear-cutting in practice. Earlier this year, Gov. Brown issued an executive order laying out a plan to improve forest management including increased vegetation thinning and controlled burns to reduce fuel for wildfire.
Reducing fuel while encouraging forests is a bit of a balancing act.
“Today’s order will improve the health of the state’s forests and help mitigate the threat and impacts of deadly and destructive wildfires, which hinder the stat’s progress toward its climate goals,” Brown said in the order. “Forests sere as the state’s largest land-based carbon sink, drawing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in trees and shrubs and in forest soils. But even a single wildfire can immediately cancel all those benefits.”
California is already working to cut wildfire threats through the removal of dead and dying trees. Since the formation of a Tree Mortality Task force in 2015, More than 1.2 million dead or dying trees have been removed from California forests, according to Brown's executive order.
Brown said he is hopeful Trump will issue a so-called Presidential Major Disaster Declaration for California. The declaration would help fire victims with unemployment assistance, food aid and legal and mental health counseling among other federal programs. The declaration will also make counties and cities eligible for federal financial assistance and help with repairing the billions of dollars of damage done to infrastructure.
More immediately, the declaration will enable federal agencies to help battle the 17 major fires burning throughout the state.
Also see | How to defend your home from wildfires
One more before you go: Devastating fires aren't just a rural problem anymore. As our climate and communities change, so does when and where wildfires will strike next. ABC10's Monica Woods shows why:
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