Donald Trump toured the devastation of California town of Paradise following the massive forest fires there with Gov. Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsome.
Speaking to the press in the middle of a town that has over 1,000 people missing, Trump displayed a sudden expertise on the science of forestry.
“You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important,” Trump said, with Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom listening.
Trump shared that during a recent meeting with the president of Finland, which has 73% forest coverage, told him the secret to avoiding forest fires is ‘raking and cleaning’ the forest floor.
“You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story. I was with the president of Finland and he called it a forest nation, and they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don’t have any problem. And when they do, it’s a very small problem.
What the Trumpster doesn’t mention is most of California forests are on federal land, meaning the federal government is in charge of managing those lands.
Plus, the Trump administration cut funding for fire prevention.
It’s worth noting that Finland is a sparsely populated nation (just over 5 million people) with a land size less than California. Most of that is forests and lakes.
The weather in Finland provides long and cold winters, as well as rain throughout the year.
I imagine that has a lot to do with fewer forest fires.
The president of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, was asked if he’d recommended ‘raking’ as a way to avoid forest fires to Trump. He told the press that he’d mentioned that Finland has “a good monitoring system” and that Fins “take care” of their forests.
But, no, he never mentioned ‘raking.’
