By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) -Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass came under sharp criticism for her response to a series of raging wildfires on Thursday, while President-elect Donald Trump sought to blame California Governor Gavin Newsom for the deadly disaster.
The criticism, fanned by Trump and his allies across social media, has triggered a political clash over the two massive wildfires menacing Los Angeles from the east and west. At least five people have died in what has developed into one of the biggest natural disasters in California's history.
The mayor, who was on an official trip to Ghana when the fires broke out on Tuesday, faced questions about her initial absence, given that the National Weather Service of Los Angeles began warning about "extreme fire weather conditions" last week.
Bass, who was sworn in as mayor of America's second most-populous city in December 2022, has sought to deflect criticism of her leadership and on Thursday did not answer questions from reporters about her decision to leave the country this week.
"My number one focus, and I think the focus of all of us here with one voice, is that we have to protect lives, we have to save lives and we have to save homes," Bass said at Thursday's briefing. "Rest assured that ...when that is done, when we are safe, when lives have been saved and homes have been saved, we will absolutely do an evaluation to look at what worked, (and) what didn't work."
The fires struck at an especially vulnerable time for Southern California, which has not seen any significant rainfall for months. They were fanned by unrelenting Santa Ana winds, consuming 31,000 acres (12,500 hectares) so far - an area more than twice as large as Manhattan.
Water shortages caused some hydrants to run dry in affluent Pacific Palisades, hindering the response. Bass and fire officials said the hydrants were not designed to deal with such a massive disaster, and stressed the unprecedented nature of the fires.
TRUMP FANS POLITICAL FLAMES
In a social media post on Thursday, the Republican Trump took aim at Bass and Newsom - both Democrats - for what he described as "gross incompetence" in dealing with the fires - a broadside he repeated later in the day at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort.
"Both of them are stone cold incompetent," Trump said.
In 2019, during his first term as president, Trump criticized Newsom's forest management that he said had contributed to devastating fires. This week, he criticized the state's water management policies in social media posts the governor and other officials dismissed as false or misleading.
"One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“It's ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!,” he wrote, misspelling the governor's name in an apparent jab.
Mayor Bass's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Newsom's director of communications, Izzy Gardon, accused Trump of politicizing the disaster.
"The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need," Gardon said in a statement.
Trump ally Elon Musk and a number of other conservatives joined the pile-on, seeking to blame the disaster in part on diversity programs that tend to be promoted by Democrats. There is no evidence to support their claims that such programs impacted the effectiveness of the response.
Musk, a billionaire tech mogul, called Bass "utterly incompetent" in a post on the social media platform X that received 23 million views. In a separate post he baselessly accused city officials of prioritizing diversity programs over "saving lives and homes."