Trump's Disaster-Hijaking Playbook Exposed

The president-elect has most recently sought to politicize the devastating California wildfires with repeated attacks on — and some false claims about — President Joe Biden and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he has derogatorily nicknamed Gavin “Newscum.”

Trump “takes these moments that used to be a time when people began to come together a little bit, at least in that period of immediate disaster when there’s shock and horror” and attempts to use it for political gain, Hemmer said.

You and I grew up in a period where we had the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine shootings, so many different natural disasters. And they have been these moments when people found a kind of common humanity. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture of it, but I do think that there’s something substantially different about entering that moment and saying, ‘Actually, the person responsible for your problems are my political enemies, and instead of focusing on rebuilding, you should focus on hating them.’

Sargent suggested it was part of a “full-on right-wing MAGA effort to degrade public life” with everything “about seizing on every opportunity to spread deranged conspiracy theories” and “turn people against each other.”

He takes every opportunity to make himself utterly unlikable. What a jackass.

“The fires are still raging in L.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. “The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”
“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost,” he wrote. “There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?”

Trump Calls Officials Handling Los Angeles Wildfires ‘Incompetent’

Reddit has some very interesting ELI5s about why firefighters need to spray with a straight line instead of widely (has to do with the smoke layer and the thermal layer), and the different types of fires requiring different approaches. Some of my firefighter friends were avid Trumpers, and it’s not clear whom he’s calling incompetent, but it’s just his usual bluster.
This will be interesting.

interesting article regarding the fires...

They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?

This is a story about frustration, about watching the West burn when you fully understand why it’s burning — and understand why it did not need to be this bad.
The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. “The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.”


Yes, there’s been talk across the U.S. Forest Service and California state agencies about doing more prescribed burns and managed burns. The point of that “good fire” would be to create a black-and-green checkerboard across the state. The black burned parcels would then provide a series of dampers and dead ends to keep the fire intensity lower when flames spark in hot, dry conditions, as they did this past week. But we’ve had far too little “good fire,” as the Cassandras call it. Too little purposeful, healthy fire. Too few acres intentionally burned or corralled by certified “burn bosses” (yes, that’s the official term in the California Resources Code) to keep communities safe in weeks like this.

Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres. The state passed a few new laws in 2018 designed to facilitate more intentional burning. But few are optimistic this, alone, will lead to significant change. We live with a deathly backlog. In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire.

Here in Bastrop County, the authorities regularly do 'controlled burns' to manage the brush. The worst fire, in 2011, came during a severe drought - no outdoor burning, period - and unusually high winds. Caused by a tree or trees falling on a power line - Asplundh recently paid $20 million+ to settle a lawsuit.

BUT, property owners in CA and OR have voted against fire mitigation practices over and over again. And much of the land on fire now is Federally-owned. Hmmm...
c.

interesting article regarding the fires...

They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?

interesting article regarding the fires...

They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?

This is a story about frustration, about watching the West burn when you fully understand why it’s burning — and understand why it did not need to be this bad.
The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. “The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.”


Yes, there’s been talk across the U.S. Forest Service and California state agencies about doing more prescribed burns and managed burns. The point of that “good fire” would be to create a black-and-green checkerboard across the state. The black burned parcels would then provide a series of dampers and dead ends to keep the fire intensity lower when flames spark in hot, dry conditions, as they did this past week. But we’ve had far too little “good fire,” as the Cassandras call it. Too little purposeful, healthy fire. Too few acres intentionally burned or corralled by certified “burn bosses” (yes, that’s the official term in the California Resources Code) to keep communities safe in weeks like this.

Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres. The state passed a few new laws in 2018 designed to facilitate more intentional burning. But few are optimistic this, alone, will lead to significant change. We live with a deathly backlog. In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire.

 miamizsun wrote:
 

Yeah we're almost surrounded - all ablaze but the West and South. But the wind has really died down and, locally, we have about 33% humidity overnight.  I'm counting on them putting what few resources they have on saving Oroville.  Dozers, air support, boots on the ground. We're in the foothills, not in the town proper but I still think  our little pocket neighborhood will be spared.

i'm seeing a sw wind with the main body of flames to the ne of you

 miamizsun wrote:
 

It's tough with all the animals. I can't figure out how to transport all the birds let alone hawks (including a bunch of falconry gear, perches, frozen quail, etc) and a few cats. Plus an extremely autistic roommate. I don't know what hell is going on. Fortunately the weather is favoring us and they haven't cut our power. Tomorrow I have to go out of town. I hope they let me back in. It's a bleedin'  nightmare... but it will be OK.