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Donald Trump threatened to withhold California’s emergency funding because the state had ignored its “rake” theory of forest management to prevent burns.
When firefighters battled hundreds of burns in Northern California, Mr. Trump told a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that the state should pay for the damage because it ignored its recommendations to previous fires.
“Maybe we’ll just have to pay them because they do not listen to us. We say you have to get rid of the leaves, you have to get rid of the rubble, to get rid of the fallen trees,” Mr Trump said Thursday.
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“And they just do not want to listen. They mocked us when I said that. You had to ‘clean your floors’, just an expression, clean the bottles, and they have many, many years, decades of leaves, dry leaves and everything. That’s why they have it. “
The president first used the phrase about clearing and touching the forest floors in the aftermath of the California wildfire in November 2018, which he turned out to blame on forest management over climate change.
At the moment he said that the state should clean the floors of the forest because he claimed to have been successful in other countries like Finland.
“I was with the President of Finland and he said … we are a forest nation, he called it a forest nation, and they spend a lot of time listening and cleaning and doing things. They have no problem, and whatever it is, it is a very small issue, “Trump said in 2018.
However, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö later said that they had only discussed having a good surveillance system and that the issue of “listening” or “cleaning up” had not arisen.
Mr. Trump on Thursday again referred to “forest cities” like those of Finland, saying they have more combustible trees than California, but have no problems with burns.
“I said you have to clean your floors. You have to clean your woods. They have many, many years of leaves and broken trees. And they are, like, so flammable that you touch them and it goes up,” he said.
“I’ve been telling them this for three years now. But they do not want to listen.”
California wildfires have so far killed at least one person, pilot Mike Fournier who died on Wednesday when his helicopter crashed while battling a 1,500-acre fire in Central Valley.
Smoke across the state can be seen in satellite material spreading from the Pacific Ocean to Montana, while nearly 11,000 lightning strikes were recorded in a 72-hour period with nearly 400 fires burning.
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