Trump, Harris pose different solutions to California’s wildfire problem. They’re both right

President Trump, who traveled to California this week to learn about the devastating wildfires that have scorched much of the state, told Gov. Gavin Newsom that dead trees and leaves were primarily to blame for the infernos.

“When trees fall down, after a short period of time, about 18 months, they become really dry. They become really like a matchstick .... and they just explode,” Trump told reporters in Sacramento.

A day later, Kamala Harris — the Democratic senator from California now running to be the next vice president — ventured into the Sierra National Forest above Fresno to see the destruction caused by the Creek Fire.

“Sadly, these wildfires and the devastation they cause are utterly predictable,” she said. ““This is not a partisan issue. This is just a fact … It is incumbent on us, in terms of the leadership of our nation, to take seriously these new changes in our climate.”

Dried-out trees and forests badly overgrown. A warming climate causing droughts, leaving vegetation starved for moisture and susceptible to fire. Which is right?

Actually, both are.

National forests, as the president noted, are in desperate need of clearing. Weaker trees that steal water and soil nutrients need to be thinned out, along with the millions of dead trees and underbrush that particularly choke the Sierra National Forest.

But Harris was correct to point out that wildfires are exacerbated by climate change — and that it will only get worse if ignored.

Thinning a good start

One U.S. Forest Service report indicates that 129 million trees have died in California’s forests since 2010. Ground zero for lifeless trees? The Sierra National Forest, with more than 30 million dead ones.

The nonprofit group American Forests says that underbrush has gotten much too overgrown due to the emphasis on fire suppression of recent decades. That is in contrast to the natural process of regular, small fires that would clean out forests of thick underbrush.

Getting forests cleaned up should be straightforward. Clear cutting causes too much environmental damage and is not the right way to go about it. But selective cutting can be done to open up forest lands again in conjunction with prescribed burns to get rid of excess underbrush. Congress and state officials must allocate the necessary funding to begin this work as soon as practical.

One key step has been taken already: Last month federal and California officials signed a pact to double the amount of forest acres cleared each year.

Facing climate change

As Harris toured the burned-up playground of Pine Ridge Elementary School near Shaver Lake, Gov. Gavin Newsom walked with her and spoke the obvious in front of a burned-down home across the street from the campus.

“You don’t believe in science? Come to California and observe with your own eyes. You cannot be in denial about this reality.”

Yet Trump did not want to address that reality during his visit.

As reported in The Sacramento Bee, Trump brushed off concerns about climate change voiced by California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. He told the president the Earth is warming. Trump told Crowfoot that the weather “will start getting cooler.”

“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot said.

“I don’t think science knows,” Trump responded.

Actually, the broad scientific consensus is that climate change is contributing heavily to the worsening of wildfire seasons. Conditions will only get worse over time, not better.

It is critical that America rejoin the global effort to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and start to cool the atmosphere — both for current Californians as well as future generations.

Bottom line: Americans badly need their elected leaders to ramp up both forest clearing and getting real about climate change.

This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.