history and president trump is weighing in on the firefighting process. he tweeted last night california wildfires are being magnified and being made worse. it s being diverted into the fantastic ocean. must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading. as the los angeles times points out the current wildfire situation is unrelated to water supplies or environmental laws. fire agencies vent been complaining about lack of water. major reservoirs are near the worst fire zones, and all are at or near their historic levels. the president also tweeted yesterday governor jerry brown must allow the free flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the north and foolishly being diverted into the pacific ocean. can be used for fires, farming
please, mr. president, for facts sake, we looked into california water and fire policy. let s go through these tweets step by step. first, water being diverted into the pacific. that makes it sound like canals are being dug to the ocean. but the president is likely referring to this. a dispute between brown s administration and california s republicans over central valley farms. the farmers want more water diverted from two rivers which flow into the san francisco bay. but others, like fishermen, support the current levels, saying any diversion would impact fish and wildlife. it has absolutely nothing to do with these fires. next, he claimed that the wildfires are being magnified because water is not being utilized properly. but major reservoirs are situated right by the fire zones. a cal fire spokesperson disputes that firefighters have any water access issues. and his second tweet, the president threw in some forestry
explain that. if you just look at areas like redding, california where they ve had this horrible most recent fire tragedy in northern california, central california, just anyone can go on google earth. they have this google earth engine. you can go back in time. go back 30 years and look at the satellite view of the houses. you can zoom and see all these little areas in the woods just being built into so fast that the exposure to fire is happening the risk is being driven just by that at a super fast rate. and i ve written about this year after year after year in different parts of the country in different like flood zones on the gulf coast, fire zones in colorado, california. the rate of development of these areas is so fast that when you see a new fire if you take a footprint of that fire you look back 40 years ago you see wow, there were hardly any people there 40 years ago. sought thing that s building exposure to hazard fastest is
better than ever chance of above average temperatures here across the northeast. that s good news for a lot. not good news for across the south where it s been warm in florida and the southwest. not any major stuff going on. you see moisture across parts of the south. these are showers this morning, clearing up behind it, the sun will come out and behind that expect to see some severe storms popping up. i ll show you that in a second. out across the west also some more storms. tuesday, wednesday a lot of rain across southern california, could be looking at flooding, especially in the fire zones. down across the southeast, this is the threat for severe weather. we re getting into severe weather season now. tornado season. that means heading into april and one big shot of it today. certainly watch it. thanks, rick still ahead, big show. david bossie, alan durt dershowz
funds for ryan zinke s unrelated helicopter tour last summer in which he did not visit any fire zones. the department said the $39,000 chopper was charged in airer to the wrong account and prompted oregon senator ron wyden to call for an internal investigation. secretary ryan zinke may have pulled fire fighting personnel for the tour. there were 21 wildfires in the region that very day. cnn reports lucas rea, a crew supervisor whose facebook shows he was working on wildfires is listed on the man test with zinke for five stops july 30th. interior did not say if he was pulled from firefighting duty to accompany zinke. it appears there were other requests that went unfull illed. an internal e-mail says we re having trouble getting two pilots. we re still waiting to hear from one more vendor.