EDITORIAL: California is burning, and Trump is blaming

Nov. 13--California, once again, is on fire.

Our smoke-filled skies are a byproduct of the ferocious inferno that virtually obliterated the town of Paradise in a matter of hours on Thursday, killing at least 29 people and leaving most of the other 26,000 homeless.

Meanwhile, two large wildfires are burning in and around Los Angeles, including one that erupted Monday morning. More than 250,000 people -- equivalent to half the population of Sonoma County -- have been forced from their homes by the Southern California fires.

The stories of frantic escapes, and of people who couldn't get away, are heart-breaking, as are the pictures of the ashes and debris left in places where, less than a week ago, neighborhoods and commercial districts thrived.

It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of the losses and the scope of human suffering. But North Coast residents understand better than most, having experienced the October 2017 wildfires, this summer's Mendocino Complex fires and three Lake County conflagrations in 2015.

That's doubly true for local firefighters who answered calls for help in Butte County. "All of the guys are saying that it's really similar to the Tubbs fire," Windsor fire Battalion Chief Mike Elson told Staff Writer Mary Callahan. "Certainly, the same shock of the devastation has been hitting everybody."

North Coast residents also know what's ahead for those who have lost homes: finding shelter in a tight housing market, negotiating with insurers, excruciating decisions about whether to rebuild or move on.

Unfortunately, most of the policyholder protections enacted after last year's fires don't take effect until 2019.

California always has been susceptible to wildfires, but they are growing larger and more intense. With the Camp fire in Butte County surpassing the Tubbs fire as No. 1, six of the most destructive wildfires in state history have occurred in the past three years.

Climate scientists say rising temperatures and persistent droughts amplify the risk of wildfires in California and throughout the West. But the Trump administration isn't listening.

President Donald Trump's first impulse was, predictably, to blame California. In a series of weekend Tweets, the president expressed no sympathy for fire victims, instead accusing the state of "gross mismanagement of the forests" and threatening to cut off unspecified federal funding.

Trump's reaction was disappointing but hardly surprising, considering that he falsely claimed that state water policy hindered firefighting efforts in Shasta County this summer.

Many of California's recent wildfires have burned across grasslands rather than forests. But if forest management is an issue, it should be noted that the state has boosted funding for vegetation management while the federal government has repeatedly cannibalized its forest management fund to pay for fire suppression. Moreover, the federal government owns 57 percent of California forestland, compared with 3 percent owned by the state.

As for the present fires, we're not aware of any forests in Malibu or the nearby communities threatened by flames. And the Camp fire broke out on, or near, federally owned land, according to the Redding Record-Searchlight newspaper.

Our first concern is for the victims of the ongoing wildfires. But the threat from calamitous fires will grow until greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change are contained. With Washington in denial, California must lead the way.

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(c)2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)

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