Democratic lawmakers claim that seriousness Wildfires in Los Angeles is the result of climate change, despite reports that the city’s fire hydrants had run out of water and that the fire department’s budget had been slashed just weeks before the Palisades fire destroyed thousands of homes and burned more than 15,000 acres.
Several wildfires broke out in the mountains of Southern California in early January, quickly spreading to coastal residential areas and destroying more than 10,000 homes and structures.
As the fires drew national attention, Democratic legislators around the country began to argue that climate change, not government policies, caused catastrophic fire damage.
“And what’s happened is that climate change has dried up our leaves, our flora. And along with these huge winds, these 50- to 100-mile-an-hour winds that occur every year at this time, a small ember can turn into a huge fire,” Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., who represents a district not far from the raging fires, told NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”
LA COUNTRY CUT FIRE BUDGET WHILE SPENDING BIG ON DEI, WAKE UP ITEMS: ‘NIGHT WALK TRANSGENDER CAFE’
Water is dropped by helicopter on the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Ethan Swope)
“Climate change has caused us chaos,” Min said.
After wildfires ripped through the mountains of Los Angeles, it was reported that local fire hydrants were not producing water and that firefighter funding had recently been cut by millions.
Governor Gavin Newsom confirmed these reports and demanded an independent investigation be directed at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) regarding water shortages amid the crisis, but Democratic lawmakers have shifted the blame from state leaders.
“The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable. Climate change is real, not a ‘hoax.’ Donald Trump must treat this as the existential crisis it is,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a social media post Wednesday morning .
Homes along Pacific Coast Highway are seen in ash after the Palisades fire, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025, in Malibu, California. (Mark J. Terrill)
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said state leaders who don’t recognize climate change as a crisis, who tend to be Republicans, are to blame.
“I am so heartbroken by the devastation that continues to be inflicted on our country and the world, and elected ‘leaders’ are ignorant, impotent, or just plain incompetent to do the smart thing, which is admit that climate change is real and start addressing it,” Crockett wrote. in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on January 8.
Another Democratic lawmaker, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, said in January that he was “glad to be working with Gov. Newsom to help CA, which has been repeatedly devastated by the effects of climate change.”
Senator Bernie Sanders said “the scale of damage and loss is unimaginable. Climate change is real, not a ‘hoax'”. Donald Trump must treat this as an existential crisis.” (Elaine Cromie/Bloomberg)
Months before the fire, Los Angeles city officials cut the fire department budget for $17.6 million, while hundreds of thousands of dollars were awarded to fund the state’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
Celebrities immediately began pointing the finger at city leadership for investing in programs like the “syringe exchange” program that gives sterile syringes to homeless drug addicts, instead of more funding for fire prevention efforts.
“We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save the fish. Our mayor cut the fire department budget. drug addicts get their drug paraphernalia,” actress Sara Foster wrote in a post on X.
Monstrous wildfires ravaged coastal cities in California in January. (AP)
On the same platform, Khloe Kardashian called out the city’s Democratic mayor, writing, “Mayor Bass, you are a joke!!!!”
Rick Caruso, the founder of a real estate company and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, suggested that forest management could have mitigated the fires.
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“We knew the winds were coming. We knew there was brush that needed to be cleared 20 years ago,” Caruso, a real estate company founder and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, told the LA Times. “This fire could have been mitigated – maybe not prevented.”
