Critics argue that Governor Gavin Newsom’s management of forests in California has been subpar, as evidenced by the current devastating wildfires in Los Angeles that are transforming parts of the city into scenes resembling an apocalyptic hellscape.
The wildfires that swept through the Los Angeles area on Wednesday exhibited intense destructive power, prompting the evacuation of numerous residents, including notable figures from the entertainment industry, who had to navigate through flames, strong winds, and thick smoke to reach safety.
While firefighters worked diligently to contain the spreading fires throughout the city, Governor Newsom announced a state of emergency for the Pacific Palisades region, reigniting criticism of his handling of land management issues.
The governor, widely seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, has faced repeated criticism for his land management policies, with seasonal blazes ravaging the Golden State throughout his time in office.
Investigations by California-based media outlets have repeatedly slammed Newsom for failing to deliver on his promises upon taking office in 2019 of revamping the state’s wildfire strategy.
He’s been accused of overstating his accomplishments and pulling much-needed funding from fire safety and land management even as the amount of burnable fuel was piling up to dangerous levels.
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
An investigation from CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom found Newsom had failed to deliver on the promise of the executive order signed on his first day in office in January 2019, aimed at revamping the state’s wildfire strategy.
Those outlets in 2021 accused him of misrepresenting his accomplishments and even pulling much-needed funds out of wildfire prevention.
They found Newsom overstated, by an astounding 690 percent, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the areas he had said needed to be prioritized.
Newsom had claimed that 35 ‘priority projects’ carried out as a result of his 2019 executive order resulted in fire prevention work across 90,000 acres of land.
But the state’s own data showed the actual number was just 11,399 — some seven times less.
The amount of burnable fuel that Cal Fire was removing from the land increased in Newsom’s first year — but then dropped by half in 2020, the investigation found.
At the same time, he slashed some $150 million from Cal Fire’s wildfire prevention budget.
Californians who survived blazes told the outlets how they felt betrayed by Newsom and other officials, saying he was more interested in photo-ops than saving homes and businesses from blazes.
‘It’s a deception,’ said Mitch Mackenzie, who lost his home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire and who’s Santa Rosa winery was hurt by reduced harvests.
‘With all the fire danger that we have experienced year, after year, after year … you would think it would be a higher priority to make sure that all of this area is treated as much as possible,’ Mackenzie said.
Politicians ‘always want to look good about fixing the problem, but then they never really do it,’ he added.
Across the state, residents have complained that fire safety features, such as emergency access roads that could help them escape from a blaze, that were promised had not been completed.
Breanna Morello, a right-wing internet personality, on Wednesday posted a photo of Newsom looking on at burning homes, saying he was ‘admiring all his hard work after intentionally neglecting forest management.’
Newsom, she added, was too focussed on the ‘globalist climate change agenda.’
Others shared old tweets from Donald Trump, who as president in 2019 slammed Newsom for a ‘terrible job of forest management’ and failing to clean wooded areas of brush that can lead to blazes.
‘I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him,’ Trump posted.
‘Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,’ he added, in reference to forest management policies that were being overlooked.
The claims showcase a split between some conservatives, who see wildfires as a land management issue, and others, who attribute the blazes to climate change and seek tighter curbs on emissions of planet-heating gases.
Blame for the LA wildfires was also hurled at the city’s embattled mayor Karen Bass, who cut the LA Fire Department’s budget by a staggering $17.6 million in this financial year.
She’d initially wanted to cut the fire department by even more — a staggering $23 million.
Bass also faced a backlash for being off duty at a time of crisis — she was reportedly away in Africa for the Ghanian president’s inauguration as blazes turned parts of her city into a terrifying hellscape.
The criticism roiled California’s Democratic leaders as thousands of firefighters battled at least three separate blazes in LA’s metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena.
LAFD put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help, and weather conditions were too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.
Images of the devastation that emerged overnight showed luxurious homes that had collapsed in a whirlwind of flaming embers.
Flames that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot.
Residents — one as old as 102 — waited in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses, and construction vans arrived to take them to safety.
Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes.
Among those affected were such Hollywood stars as Mark Hamill, Mandy Moore and James Woods.
In the race to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.
‘This is a highly dangerous windstorm that’s creating extreme fire risk – and we’re not out of the woods,’ Newsom said in a statement.
‘We’re already seeing the destructive impacts with this fire in Pacific Palisades that grew rapidly in a matter of minutes.’
