How the Carolina wildfires are, perversely, good news for California

To address the most important point up front: The wildfires currently spreading across North and South Carolina are tragic.

Thousands of acres have been burned by hundreds of fires since Saturday, taking property and placing livelihoods at risk. There are no reports of fire-driven deaths, as yet, but evacuations have been ordered and emergency declarations made. Firefighters continue to struggle to bring the blazes under control. The causes include unusually dry conditions and wind gusts of up to 40 mph.

That said, the Carolina fires may have a positive result that will be felt coast to coast, and especially in California: They’re likely to quell all that stupid talk about attaching strings to federal wildfire disaster relief.

That threat has been made by Trump; his disaster czar, Ric Grenell; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.); Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a member of that chamber’s GOP leadership; and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), among many others. Also pitching in are members of the right-wing peanut gallery, such as Fox News mouthpieces Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters.

What they’ve tend to have in common is a focus on California policies that had nothing to do with the fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena but have been long-term targets of conservatives and Republicans.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-03-05/how-the-carolina-wildfires-are-perversely-good-news-for-california

Hiltzik may be a tad optimistic here; Republicans reflexively hate California and everything it represents, so they won't have any problem restricting aid to the state while sending unrestricted recovery funds to the Carolinas.