Debunking 5 claims about the California wildfires

Devastating wildfires in southern California are continuing to spread amid dry and windy conditions.

At least 24 people are believed to be dead as of Tuesday morning, thousands of structures have been destroyed or damaged and tens of thousands of acres have been scorched.

As firefighters continue to battle the flames, misinformation about California's response to the fires is spreading with the same speed as the fires themselves.

President-elect Donald Trump has blamed the state's water policies for fire hydrants running dry – claims the facts do not support – and has criticized the leadership of Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden.

Other critics have claimed, without evidence, that the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives rather than on strengthening fire departments' ability to fight wildfires.

Here are five claims that have arisen surrounding the wildfires, and what the data actually shows.

Claim: Gov. Newsom's policies to blame for lack of water for hydrants

This claim is false and is missing context.

In a post Wednesday on Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump claimed there is "no water for the hydrants" and blamed Newsom's policies as the reason some hydrants failed.

But experts say it's more complicated than that. Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, said there are many reasons why fire hydrants run dry.

He explained that the hydrants are connected to a water distribution network of pipes that run beneath the cities that are fed by local distribution water reservoirs. The local reservoirs in turn are fed by larger regional reservoirs, which are close to full capacity.

"There's no shortage of water in Southern California, but there was a shortage of water in the areas that had the fires because the storage they had locally in the neighborhoods, in the towns, was not enough for the event," Lund said.

He added that cities across the U.S. have water distribution pipe systems that are designed to provide enough water to fight large fires. However, if the fire is massive, the stored water will only last for a short time before the supply is exhausted.

"I think the reason why they ran out of water was that the [fire] was much bigger than what the hydraulic systems in the local storage systems were designed for, even though the region, in California, has really quite a lot of water," Lund said.

He further added that the number of hydrants that needed to be opened in Los Angeles to fight the fires that were rapidly spreading for dozens of blocks caused the water pressure to drop. That drop first affected locations at the highest elevations, meaning the homes in the hills.

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) said water pressure was lost “due to unprecedented and extreme water demand to fight the wildfire without aerial support,” according to a statement on its website.

“As soon as LADWP identified the risk of losing water in the tanks and water pressure in the system, we immediately deployed potable water tankers to sustain support for firefighting efforts,” the statement said.

Additionally, Lund says there is no water shortage. Data from the California Department of Water Resources shows that, as of Jan. 12, the state's major water supply reservoirs were filled either at or above historic averages as of Thursday.

Newsom on Friday posted on X that he was "calling for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir."

"We need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires," Newsom added.

According the LADWP statement, it was "required to take the Santa Ynez Reservoir out of service to meet safe drinking water regulations."

Claim: Newsom didn't sign a 'water restoration declaration'

This claim is false.

In the same post Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Newsom did not sign a "water restoration declaration" that was put before him.

The declaration would have allegedly "allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way," according to Trump.

Newsom's press office said this claim is false and that the document doesn't exist. "There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction," the office posted on X on Wednesday, adding, "The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need."

California water policy experts agree, telling ABC News they've never heard of such a declaration, nor are they aware of its existence.

"As far as I know, there is no water restoration declaration that has ever been put before the governor, nor do I know of any such document in any of the regulatory or legislative proceedings that I engage," Ashley Overhouse, a California water policy advisor for the nonprofit conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife, told ABC News.

"No water restoration declaration was put before Gov. Newsom," Brent Haddad, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told ABC News in an email.

"President Trump signed an order to redirect water to the Central Valley and Southern California, but Gavin Newsom sued him — choosing his radical left environmental interests over Golden State farmers and families," a spokesperson for the Trump/Vance transition team said in response to an ABC News request for comment.

Trump did sign a presidential memorandum in February 2019 that "directs the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality to help deliver and develop more water supplies in California’s Central Valley," according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The next day, then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency filed suit to block the action, in part "to protect highly imperiled fish species close to extinction,” Governor Newsom said at the time in a statement from the California Department of Justice announcing the suit.

When asked to comment on the Trump/Vance transition team's response, Gov. Newsom's press office responded to ABC News with their previous rebuttal regarding the alleged water restoration declaration.

Claim: There's 'no money' in FEMA

This claim is false.

Trump claimed in another Truth Social post on Wednesday that President Biden is leaving office with "no money in FEMA," the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Congress in fact passed a bill in December that provided an additional $100 billion for disaster aid, including $29 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund. The funding was less than the $40 billion Biden had requested for the agency.

Additionally, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was in Los Angeles Thursday to meet with local officials and survey the damage.

FEMA also released a guide to assistance for those impacted by the fires to "jumpstart their recovery." The agency said individuals in designated areas may be able to receive money for essential items, including food, water, medication and other supplies.

"The approved FEMA funding was for communities that were long overdue disaster assistance, such as those in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton," the Trump/Vance transition team spokesperson told ABC News in response to a request for clarification on the president-elect's claim about FEMA funding.

"Thanks to Congress’ recent passage of a disaster supplemental, FEMA has the funding and resources needed to respond to the needs of California and other active disasters FEMA continues to support," a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News in reply to a request for comment on the Trump/Vance transition team's response.

"The current balance of the Disaster Relief Fund is approximately $27 billion," the FEMA statement continued.

Claim: DEI and wildfire response

This claim is false and is misleading regarding DEI initiatives within the LAFD.

Some prominent voices have claimed that the LAFD focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives among its ranks to the alleged detriment of the fire department's ability to fight fires.

"They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes," Elon Musk wrote on X Wednesday, reposting a claim from another account that criticized the initiative.

Actor James Woods also wrote a post on X criticizing Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. He shared a photo of her along with a screenshot from part of her biography on the department website discussing DEI.

"Priorities stated in her bio below," Woods wrote. "Refilling the water reservoirs would have been a welcome priority, too, but I guess she had too much on her plate promoting diversity."

Racial equity experts told ABC News there is no evidence to support a claim that attention to DEI initiatives affected firefighters' ability to fight the fires.

"I find it to be disgustingly opportunistic," Shaun Harper, a provost professor in the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, told ABC News. "I just find it to be yet another window that conservative attackers are jumping through with no evidence, but they see it as an opportunity to further attack DEI."

"It's hard to overstate how ridiculous this is," added Erica Foldy, an associate professor of public and nonprofit management at New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Services.

Both Harper and Foldy told ABC News there also is no evidence to suggest that money was diverted from fire prevention initiatives and given to DEI programs.

In a lengthy interview Friday with Los Angeles TV station KTTV, Chief Crowley said budget cuts, against which she fought, "did impact our ability to provide service" in fighting the fires.

"We had 112 fire stations. Now we have 106 and since 2010 we've had an increase, doubled our call volume, which is firefighters responding to calls," Crowley said. "55% increase with 68 less firefighters."

When asked if she felt city officials failed her, her department and the city itself, Crowley replied: "Yes."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pushed back against criticism that the fire department's budget affected firefighters' ability to battle the wildfires.

"I think it's most important to understand that we were in tough budgetary times," Bass said. "Everybody knew that, but that the impact of our budget really did not impact what we've been going through over the last few days."

Claim: Protecting smelt fish limited available water to fight fires

This claim is false.

Some politicians have also claimed that protections for a tiny endangered fish species called the delta smelt are impeding firefighters' abilities to battle the blaze because of water diversion.

In his same post on Truth Social about the alleged "water restoration declaration," Trump accused Gov. Newsom of caring more about protecting the fish than protecting Californians, alleging that Newsom diverted water from residents to protect the fish.

"He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it [sic] less water (it didn't work!), but didn't care about the people of California," Trump wrote, apparently referring to the 2019 presidential memorandum that he signed and that Newsom filed suit to block, saying at the time that it "puts at risk Delta smelt, Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, and other fish species."

The implication is that the limits on how much water can be pumped out of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary, known as the Bay-Delta, where delta smelt live, is affecting the water supply needed to fight the fires.

"The claim that Delta smelt protections in the Bay-Delta estuary are limiting the amount of water exported to southern California, which, in turn, would affect the amount of water available for emergency response, has no merit whatsoever," Overhouse, from Defenders of Wildlife, told ABC News.

Overhouse said even the most protective regulations for delta smelt, under former President Barack Obama's administration, only accounted for about 1.2% of additional Bay-Delta outflow.

ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler, Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.