“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
If this situation wasn’t so sickening, so heartbreaking, so horrific and gut-wrenching awful, you wouldn’t know rather to laugh or cry. But some comedy of errors are so bad and so redundant, there’s nothing comic-like about them — despite the combined Keystone Cops-like efforts of those who keep this sick show alive.
“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
Remember that line? It’s from an old pizza commercial on TV. The gag was, these two clownish oafs were making pizza and kept “accidentally” spilling more stuff into the mix, resulting in a bigger and thus more filling pie.
“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
If they remade that commercial today, the people making the mess that’s churning our stomachs would be representing PG&E and the state of California and a few other choice entities, and the only thing that’s cooking is damn near every square inch of northern California.
Again. And again. Year after year after year, and the ingredients they’re throwing into the mix might as well be napalm and gasoline.
“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
Look, there goes another equipment fail — PG&E just started another fire! And boy, look at that blaze take off, thanks to decades of no forest management, extra-dry conditions and nobody giving a damn, unless it looked like a mighty fine day to swoop into town for a photo op.
Speaking of which, Governor Newsom came up to a remote stretch of Glenn County on Wednesday, where he talked about climate change and the August Fire (which has been out since last fall). He waited until Saturday to visit the 26-day-old Dixie Fire, which is near the half-million-acre mark and shows little signs of slowing down — especially after blasting into Greenville on Wednesday night, leaving behind little but charred remains of buildings and the crushed lives of innocent people with generations of mountain blood in their veins.
500,000 acres. It sounds like a mighty poor way to describe a fire these days. Remember when a 5,000 acre fire was considered huge? Or 20,000 acres? Hell, these days, that’s barely an adequate description of one day’s worth of fire growth.
If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to think the Dixie Fire has already covered more square miles than we’ll ever see from the floundering $100 billion bullet train, which continues to suck money out of taxpayers’ pockets with the same velocity as those wild embers flying around Plumas County. So we don’t have money to keep the Susanville prison (and its inmate firefighting program) open — but just think of how fast we’re going to be able to get from Merced to Fresno!
“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
It’s beyond sad how the self-proclaimed “most advanced state in the nation” cannot get a grip on this. It has spun completely out of control and, as we noted in our “What’s left to burn?” story a few days back, we are a long, long way from being out of this sick series of horror shows — most of which continue to star the same bad actors.
Camp Fire? Whoops, PG&E equipment started it. The Dixie Fire, which started very close to the same spot as the Camp Fire, almost three years later, despite repeated assurances of safety improvements? “Uh, yeah, whoops, we might have started that one too.” And then the Fly Fire, which ended up merging with the Dixie Fire? “Yep. Sorry. That might be our bad too. Clumsy me!”
And if you think the point of this column is to lay all of the blame on PG&E, you’re wrong. They barely qualify as a co-star in this inept lineup of overpaid charlatans.
For example, we’ve got a state led by a guy apparently more concerned with sagging poll numbers and a mounting recall election than anything having to do with fire protection, an effort he admitted he “accidentally” overstated by almost 700 percent recently. And hey, how about that decision to close the prison in Susanville earlier this year, which (pending a judge’s restraining order last week) killed off the inmate firefighting program? Think those well-trained and experienced men might be a valuable resource for our overwhelmed fire crews in helping to battle these infernos in the future?
“Whoops! Clumsy me!”
What about that undergrowth? All those dangerous trees next to power lines, on public lands and elsewhere? Well, guess what — have you tried to cut down a tree in this state lately? There’s so much environmental red tape suffocating most common-sense clean-up efforts, you couldn’t cut through it with a king-sized Husqvarna and a 24-inch-bar.
And let’s not forget who actually owns most of the forest land in our state: the federal government. But they’re so busy scrambling to cover a mishandled pandemic and a still-wide-open southern border — “Come on in! No mask required. Whoops! Clumsy me!” — you have to wonder if anyone other than Doug LaMalfa could actually find Butte or Plumas County on a map.
But other than our congressman, who has asked for federal help to fight these fires, none of these other people are ever going to breathe this smoke or walk across these charred lands. It’s apparently little more to them than another political football, a reason to point fingers and send sarcastic staff-written tweets, or (especially) a chance to blame everything on the person on the other side of the aisle. Clumsy you!
In short, we’ve been led into a burning chasm of hell-like intensity by people who offer nothing but election-year promises that they cannot keep, because they have no idea how to actually solve any of this, and refuse to listen to any of the people who do.
And let’s talk about climate change. It’s a very popular pastime right now for people on one side of the aisle to point fingers at the other and say “These science deniers refuse to do anything about climate change and that’s why the fires are out of control and the lakes are so low!” But here’s the thing: the people who are doing the finger-pointing — that would be the Democrats — have ALL of the power in this state. If they wanted to craft and enforce the strictest climate change laws in the history of the planet today, there is absolutely nothing James Gallagher or Jim Nielsen could do to stop them. The Republican legislators in this state have no power. Zero. Zilch. Nada. To blame climate change and thus the fires on them is … well, typical.
The truth is, many of these people in power are frauds. All they care about is fundraising and getting re-elected; period. And we’re the ones paying the price, figuratively and literally. Clumsy me? More like Stupid Us.
Finally — let’s go back to the first day of the Dixie Fire. Cal Fire, being fully aware of the location and potential for a big spread, called for air attacks. But with the fire still in the single-digit acre stage, they had to ground the air attack that first day — and again the next morning — because somebody was flying drones in the area. Who knows how this fire could have turned out differently if the air attack had continued and the fire progress slowed? Would we even be talking about this today? And why aren’t we just shooting these damn drones out of the sky in this kind of situation? How stupid IS this, anyway?
“Oh, sorry I grounded your airplanes. But look at all these cool pictures I got from my new drone! Clumsy me!”
If I sound mad, and even more over-the-top than usual, well, guess what … I am. Honestly, I’m so pissed at this point — there’s a word you don’t see in print often — I’m swinging out at everything in my inflammable-brush-covered path. And I don’t really care who I hit or whose feelings I hurt, so long as they’ve got anything to do with the problem that’s absolutely killing our counties and our rural communities. And until some of these people — our so-called “leaders,” and supposed brightest minds — get locked in a room with people who know what the hell they’re talking about and make an actual, true, real, no-holds-barred commitment to changing the landscape, none of this is going to stop. We’ll keep watching plumes of smoke in the sky every summer and fall as our surroundings burn through a hellish eternity while those in charge shrug, point fingers and pose for the cameras.
That’s why I’m so angry. If you’re offended or hurt by anything I said here today, my best guess is you’re probably part of the problem too.
Whoops. Clumsy me.
Mike Wolcott is editor of the Enterprise-Record. He can be reached at mwolcott@chicoer.com. This column was updated Sunday to reflect the fact that Newsom visited the Dixie Fire area Saturday.