Fact-checking criticism of California Democrats over fires

The wildfires raging in Los Angeles have led to claims that officials there have mismanaged the city’s preparation for such events.

President-elect Donald Trump has pointed the finger of blame at California Governor Gavin Newsom, who he says is responsible for LA’s struggling water supply.

Others have blamed LA Mayor Karen Bass for cutting the city’s fire department budget.

BBC Verify looked into the facts behind the political fallout.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump said Governor Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water” to put out the fires.

But the specific declaration he mentions doesn’t appear to exist.

The governor’s press office issued a statement in response, saying: “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction.”

We’ve also searched for this document and been unable to find it.

Newsom has previously opposed efforts to redirect more water to southern California.

This includes a 2020 presidential memorandum in which Trump sought to divert water away from Northern California to farmland further south.

Newsom opposed this at the time, saying he wanted to protect “highly imperilled fish species close to extinction”.

That is what Trump is referencing in his post blaming Newsom for the response to the wildfires, where he says the governor “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish”, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has confirmed.

California’s attorney general ultimately blocked the measure, citing potential harm to endangered species and saying that it was not scientifically justified.

Experts say this decision isn’t impacting the efforts to tackle these wildfires.

“California is not experiencing water supply shortages at the moment, not in southern California or elsewhere,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources.

“There is plenty of water in the reservoirs for firefighting or whatever you want to do with it,” he adds.

Although southern California is currently experiencing a drought, data shows its reservoirs are almost all currently above the historic average for this time of the year. None are at significantly low levels.

Trump has also said that there was “no water for fire hydrants”.

There have been reports that certain fire hydrants have run dry.

This is down to high demand placing a heavy strain on the system, according to local officials and experts.

In Pasadena, Fire Chief Chad Augustin said the area experienced a short period of time where pressure was low on a small amount of hydrants. All issues had been resolved, he added.

“There are very localised incidents of this unfolding where the fire hydrants have had insufficient water pressure for firefighters to use them, but that’s not because LA is running out of water,” says Mr Swain.

“There are thousands of firefighters and hundred of fire engines drawing upon water, and ultimately only so much can flow through pipes at a time.”

LA Mayor Karen Bass has faced criticism over cuts to the city’s fire department budget.

For the latest financial year, the LA Fire Department (LAFD) budget was reduced by $17.6m (£14.3m).

In a memo to Mayor Bass last month, LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley warned that the cuts had “severely limited the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, such as wildfires”.

Mayor Bass responded to the criticism, saying: “I think if you go back and look at the reductions that were made, there were no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.”

The LAFD has an overall budget of almost $820m (£670m), and it isn’t the only department responding to the fires.

For example, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Los Angeles County Fire Department are part of the relief efforts, along with the federal government.

“LA County has some of the most advanced and sophisticated wildfire fighting resources of any location in the world. If you had to chose one place on earth that was best place to tackle this sort of disaster, it would be LA county,” says Mr Swain.

“The disaster isn’t as bad as it is because there’s a lack of resource, the reality is there’s a limit to how effective wildland firefighting can be under extreme conditions like we experienced this week.”

Additional reporting by Joshua Cheetham.