California wildfire ignites political row

With battle lines drawn ahead of November’s election, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is also due to address the wildfires and their cause Monday...

US president Donald Trump was due Monday to visit California for a briefing on record wildfires that have killed 35 people, as West Coast officials and political opponents accused him of being in denial about climate change.

The history-making blazes have now burned through nearly five million acres (two million hectares) across the US West, torching an area roughly the size of the state of New Jersey, with fears the death toll may rise.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate who tweeted that Trump ‘denied evidence” the flames were ‘intensified by the climate crisis,” is also set to tour the damage, as the infernos ignite a political conflagration.

‘This is climate change, and this is an administration that’s put its head in the sand,” Eric Garcetti, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, told CNN’s ‘State of the Union” on Sunday.

Of at least 35 people killed by the blazes since the beginning of summer, 27 died this week alone. Dozens were still missing on Sunday.

Trump has made little comment about the blazes in recent weeks, but at a Nevada campaign event on Saturday he acknowledged the scope of the disaster.

‘They never had anything like this,” said Trump, who systematically downplays global warming. ‘Please remember the words, very simple, forest management.”

He plans to meet Monday with the heads of California’s emergency services, while California senator Harris will tour the damage a day later.

Garcetti hit back at the president’s earlier remarks, saying that ‘anybody that lives in California is insulted by that.”

‘Talk to a firefighter if you think that climate change isn’t real... This isn’t about forest management or raking.”