Right-wing commentators have blamed the devastating Southern California wildfires on Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, claiming that she has prioritized implementing pro-diversity initiatives over her duties.
Crowley, who is a lesbian, has borne the brunt of the right-wing’s outrage despite the fact there’s no evidence that she’s either unqualified for her job (she was in the top 50 of 16,000 applicants when she passed her firefighter exam) or that the department’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives took money away from firefighting efforts.
Experts believe that the wildfires currently ravaging Southern California are caused by climate change, which has altered wind and rain patterns in the region, and, when combined with a lack of rainfall, hot Santa Ana winds that have dehydrated vegetation, and a series of extended droughts that have plagued California in recent years, creates fires that are more severe and harder to contain.
Additionally, the Los Angeles infrastructure contains an abundance of flammable materials, including low-hanging power cables and wooden telephone poles, that make perfect fuel for a fire. Due to these conditions, any small spark can lead to an out-of-control fire.
Still, according to conservative news outlets, the wildfires are an example of “death by DEI,” in which either allegedly unqualified individuals are promoted to positions where they are ineffective in stopping natural disasters or preventable crimes, or where people in positions of power have prioritized diversifying their workforce over promoting people on “merit.”
As noted by journalist Emery Winter of the fact-checking website VERIFY, claims that local officials failed to ensure that the city’s water tanks and fire hydrants were sufficiently full of water are false. Rather, according to local officials, the hydrants used by firefighters ran out of water because of “high water demand that is outpacing the speed at which water service officials can replenish the tanks.”
Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, told VERIFY that there isn’t a shortage of water in the area’s reservoirs. Additionally, the California Department of Water Resources website shows that the state’s major reservoirs are at or above their historic levels.
Mike Beasley, the head of the board of Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, told National Public Radio that blaming DEI for the current difficulties extinguishing wildfires has “only slightly more credibility than the Jewish space laser theories.”
“There is no number of people that will stop all the fires in the middle of a hot, dry season with the climate-charged fuel aridity. There just isn’t,” Beasley said. “With these Santa Ana winds happening, it’s just about getting people out of the way. It’s not really about putting the fire out until the winds calm down.”
He added that right-wingers’ accusations of DEI are nothing more than political pandering to their ideological allies.
“No fire agency is going to sacrifice training and fundamental fire control and fundamental operations at the expense of DEI training,” he said.
