When catastrophe strikes, its victims understandably want to know how and why — but their curiosity often morphs into snap judgments and witch hunts by those with ulterior motives.

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

The horribly destructive wildfires sweeping through Los Angeles County neighborhoods have become fodder for irresponsible, fact-free finger-pointing, mostly aimed at Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Social media have erupted with vituperative attacks on both figures, alleging that they, either by actions or inactions, allowed the firestorms to destroy thousands of homes and claim dozens of lives. One expertly produced fake video depicts Newson and Bass playing fiddles, Nero-like, while the city burns.

Trump Starts Misinformation Campaign

President-elect Donald Trump started the campaign of misinformation by very quickly pinning the fires on Newsom, who has been one of his sharpest critics. But his broadside made absolutely no sense.

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump posted on his Truth Social website. “He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work), but didn’t care about the people of California.”

The fires had nothing to do with how much water had moved from Northern California to Southern California during this or any other year. The weak water pressure that firefighters encountered in the afflicted communities was mostly caused by simultaneous demands on urban water systems that were designed for fighting house fires one at a time, not huge wildfires.

The fires themselves contributed to the decline in pressure to hydrants, because as buildings burned, their internal water systems failed, spewing water into the streets. On Monday, the Los Angeles water agency reported that it had shut off 4,200 water connections to burned buildings.

One reservoir had been taken down for routine maintenance, which had some effect on the water system, but that wasn’t a managerial failure, just an unfortunate coincidence.

Newsom can be fairly criticized for many things he has done or not done, but he is absolutely blameless on the fires, no matter what Trump and other critics might allege.

Newsom has done exactly what one expects a governor to do in disasters — marshaled state assets, issued emergency orders, sought factual information to convey to the public, and solicited help from other states and the federal government.

Bad Optics Will Haunt Bass

It’s a slightly different story vis-à-vis Bass.

Despite official warnings that Los Angeles faced a major wildfire risk due to dry conditions and seasonal high winds off the desert known as the Santa Anas, Bass traveled to Ghana as part of a U.S. delegation to a presidential inauguration. Moreover, she traveled despite pledging during her campaign for mayor in 2022 to curb her penchant for world travel while in Congress, as the New York Times noted.

When the fires erupted, Bass was thousands of miles away. She rushed home but the political damage was done.

Bass also was publicly criticized by Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley for not providing more money to bolster firefighting capability. If the department had more money, “we would’ve been in a better position” to battle the fires, Crowley told a television interviewer.

All of that said, if Bass had stayed at home rather than junketing to Ghana, would it have made any difference when fires erupted? Probably not.

It was just what political pros call bad optics, and it will haunt her if she seeks another term next year.

About the Author

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

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