DISINFO: California wildfires were mishandled because money was spent on transgenders and Ukraine
SUMMARY
The budget of Californian firefighters was reduced by USD 17.6 million. This money was spent on a variety of other programs including on a cafeteria for transgenders and the project dedicated to international archives for gays and lesbians. Furthermore, Los Angeles firefighters earlier donated their equipment to Ukraine which also contributed to dysfunctional firefighting services in California.
RESPONSE
This is a manipulative report related to the January 2025 California wildfires which deflects the role climate change plays in the frequency and intensity of extreme natural phenomena, targets vulnerable communities, and aims to undermine support for Ukraine among the US population.
The timeline related to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) budget is more complicated than it is presented. As reported by Forbes, LAFD’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year was reduced by USD 17.6 million in June 2024. It amounted to a reduction by 2.7% in the LAFD’s USD 820 million budget. This being said, in November 2024, an additional USD 53 million was approved in pay raises for firefighters and another USD 58 million for new fire-trucks and other equipment. The LAFD’s budget therefore increased by over 7% over the previous fiscal year. In December 2024, about USD 7 million was cut from the LAFD’s overtime budget.
Pro-Kremlin disinformation has a background of exploiting natural disasters with the aim of undermining the support for Ukraine, as happened before with wildfires in Hawaii in 2023 and Hurricane Helene in 2024. The reporting about the 2024 catastrophic floods in southern Poland similarly manipulatively suggested that destruction provoked by natural disaster was possible due to financial assistance that Poland has provided to Ukraine.