Wildfire of Conspiracy Theories
Disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories about the Los Angeles area wildfires have spread in far right spaces online.

The far right has responded to the Los Angeles area wildfires with vicious contempt and morbid voyeurism, and “MAGA acolytes, right-wing commentators, conservative news outlets, and far-right conspiracists all laid the blame not on climate change or on eight months without rain, but on wokeism.”
Misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories about the wildfires has rapidly spread on social media, and state and local officials have attempted to respond to the false claims made by everyone from president-elect Donald Trump to right-wing social media influencers.

The primary narrative from right-wing media and social media influencers was that the Los Angeles area wildfires were not caused by a confluence of events exacerbated be extreme weather conditions driven by climate change, but by “woke” policies and “DEI hires” in leadership positions. Even though, the day before the wildfires began, the National Weather Service issued a warning of a “critical fire weather conditions.. with extremely critical fire weather likely for parts of Los Angeles.”
Beth Brelje, an elections correspondent for right-wing The Federalist, writes that “there is no excuse for fire hydrants going dry,” and “if other states can prevent massive fires and keep water flowing when needed, California should have the technology to do the same.” Berlje claims that “firefighters across the nation know they can pick up water from any lake or reservoir in a pinch,” and “many rural areas without fire hydrants fight fires exclusively this way.”
“Los Angeles filled its water tanks earlier this week, prior to the start of the current wildfire outbreak. Fire 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.” [Verify]
“We pushed the system to the extreme. Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.” [Los Angeles Times]
Eireann Van Natta, intelligence state reporter at the right-wing Dally Caller, writes that the “City of Los Angeles cut funding for its fire department and allocated thousands of dollars to various progressive programs,” and claimed the founding was directed to a gay men’s chorus, transgender cafe, and social justice art.
David Marcus, conservative columnist, writes at Fox News that the “tragedy in California this week has its roots in decades of institutional capture in our universities and regulatory agencies by climate alarmists,” and that “California has made a huge sacrifice at the altar of climate alarmism.”
“…nothing to do with the overall availability of water to southern California and nothing to do with the state’s efforts to protect endangered and threatened fish and ecosystems.” [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]
Liel Leibovitz, editor-at-large at the conservative Tablet Magazine, writes in the New York Post that the “devastation of Los Angeles occurred largely as a result of people in power adhering blindly and madly to a very bad religion,” and claimed that “it was the woke religion that inspired the mayor, a champion of the gospel of diversity, equity and inclusion, to appoint a string of incompetents to the city’s all-important water board.”

Daniel Greenfield, journalism fellow at the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center, writes in the right-wing FrontPage Magazine that “wokeness and DEI led to four lesbians, 3 of them named some variation of Kirstin, running one of the nation’s largest fire departments,” and posted a thread on Twitter/X claiming that “the old Los Angeles Fire Department was not diverse. It was run by white men. It's now run by lesbians named Kirsten,” and that the “LAFD is much worse at fighting fires, but at least it asks the fires for their pronouns first.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department has been embroiled in several scandals related to allegations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
“…leaders of two organizations of Black and Latino members of the Los Angeles Fire Department have called for a federal investigation into what they allege is widespread racial bias and other wrongdoing in the agency’s treatment of employees.” [Los Angeles Times]
“…the recent calls for changes at the Los Angeles Fire Department have renewed the national spotlight on female firefighters, whose ranks remain low, despite decades of integration.” [The Washington Post]
Kevin Downey, an obscure conservative comedian, writes in the right-wing PJ Media that “every institution, whether it's our airlines, a basketball team, or a fire department, will crumble once the DEI animals spread through them like cancer,” and the “LAFD is one of those institutions taken over by Marxists.” Downey describes the victims of the fires as “brain-dead dogsbodies who long for nothing more than to feel they are better than YOU because they obey their masters, even as their homes burn.”
‘It's almost as if they were hit by a weapon.’
There have been numerous conspiracy theories claiming the Los Angeles area wildfires were started on purpose as part of shadowy conspiracy by nefarious actors, and the purpose of which is either to 1) destroy Los Angeles in order rebuild the area as an AI smart city for the Olympics in 2028) or as an distraction to cover for coming authoritarian actions by Biden Administration including preventing Trump from being inaugurated 3) or as part of terrorist attack by ether radical environmentalists, Latin American drug cartels, or Antifa.
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