Twitter CEO Elon Musk got his ass handed to him by a Los Angeles firefighter during a livestream to discuss the wildfires which continue to ravage large areas in the state.
Last Thursday, Musk suggested that climate change wasn’t the main cause of the California wildfires and that a “shortage of water” could be blamed for the disaster.
Musk posted, “Exactly. Climate change risk is real, just much slower than alarmists claim. The immense loss of homes in LA is primarily due to: 1. Nonsensical overregulation that prevented creating fire breaks and doing brush clearing. 2. Bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.”
That led California Gov. Gavin Newsom to post video of Musk discussing the issue with firefighters who contradicted Elon’s attempt at scapegoating.
In the video, Musk asks, “Was water available? I understand that wasn’t an issue in Malibu, is that correct?”
The firefighter responds, “There was water. We have water reservoirs. Just an example: If we have one building burning, we can flow 1000 gallons a minute through that one building.”
“The amount of water we’re flowing, there really is no water system that’s gonna keep that pace, so we have to bring in water tenders, which are these big water tanks, you know, 2500/3000-gallon trucks, and they’ll come in and that’s what we have to do to compensate.”
“[The Department of Water and Power] did a great job, they brought in big trucks for us and we used them as, basically, mobile hydrants,” the firefighter adds.
Musk: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but in Malibu there was no shortage of water, in the Palisades there was a shortage of water at a certain point, or is that not accurate?”
Firefighter: “Well, we were flowing an amount of water that the system couldn’t… it was overbearing.”
Musk ends the livestream with a tepid, “Ok. Alright. Sounds good.”
Here’s the video:
