After the Los Angeles fires, disinformation has increased online. The difficulties in taming the fire and the environmental emergency fuel the denialist theories of digital users
California has been burning since January 7. Clouds of smoke cover the city of Los Angeles, which is now painted in two colors: the orange of the flames and the black of everything that has gone up in flames.
Five major fires are burning in the region. The largest, the Palisades Fire, is burning 17,200 acres (about 69 square kilometers) in the Pacific Palisades coastal region, between Malibu and Santa Monica. Another fire is the Eaton Fire, which has already burned 42 square kilometers. In the San Fernando Valley there are two smaller fires, the Hurst Fire and the Lidia Fire. The last is the Sunset Fire, which is threatening the residential neighborhood of Hollywood Hills. Firefighters continue to battle the flames, but the weather and strong winds are making it difficult to contain them. Ten people have died so far, but the death toll is expected to rise, while 180,000 people have been displaced.
Thousands of posts on social media dedicated. Words of closeness for those who are suffering the environmental disaster, but also polemical tones to find a culprit or a cause to report.
The fire season usually coincides with the summer season, lasting until October at the latest. The ongoing drought and six months of almost no precipitation, with gusts of intense wind, have fueled the current fires. “The winds and low relative humidity will continue to create dangerous conditions”, according to the latest forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The intensity of the Santa Ana, which reached 160 km/h, is not an anomaly, but rather is typical of this area. “It is a local wind,” explains Serena Giacomin, meteorologist and president of the Italian Climate Network, “it originates from the hinterland of California and Nevada in a territory that is very dry and mountainous.” When it comes down from the mountains, “it compresses, dries out and can reach significant strength.” The combination of territorial aridity and gusts of wind has therefore led to emergency weather conditions. “In this way the fire becomes untamable,” she adds.
From a meteorological point of view, California has seen a very strong impact of climate extremes. According to the latest NOAA numbers, it never rained from June to October. While May, November and December 2024 saw a drop in rainfall. In May, just 6 millimeters fell, compared to an average of 13; in November, there were only 3.5, far from the expected 19. The most serious situation occurred in December, with just 0.5 millimeters of precipitation compared to the historical average of 71.6. All of this has evident effects, especially on the suffering and vulnerability of vegetation. “Climate change is not the direct culprit for the fact that a fire started,” adds the expert, “but this has increased the impact and made society very vulnerable to the problem.”
But the crisis is not just climate-related. On social media, attacks and insults first targeted the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, who was in Ghana in the first days of the fire, to follow the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama.
President-elect Donald Trump has called both Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom incompetent. In Truth, he wrote, “The fire has been spreading rapidly for three days—ZERO CONTAINMENT. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency has no money, all squandered on the New Green Scam!” Not content, he dubbed the governor “Newscum” and called for his resignation.
#LosAngelesFire #CaliforniaWildfires #LosAngelesWildfires #California and #LosAngeles are all the hashtags, trending for days, that users on X are using to comment on what happened.
Two narratives prevail. The first is about the incompetence of the Democratic political class in knowing how to manage and prevent an emergency of this magnitude. On the other, connected to the previous one, Trump voters who, in addition to underlining that with the new presidency something will change, deny the causes of climate change.
While rescuers are working tirelessly to contain the flames, President Biden has decided to cancel his trip to Italy, during which he was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Francis, to closely monitor the situation. While the emergency has highlighted the need for more effective management and long-term measures to prevent similar crises, “The effort we should make is to overcome the dichotomy of ‘it’s the fault of the arsonist or climate change’ but to treat the issue as something that increases existing risks.”
di Federica Carlino
