Trump makes up some bullshit about the Finns preventing forest fires by raking - Polidicks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/18/trump-suggests-californians-can-rake-their-forests-prevent-wildfires-he-is-wrong/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a2941bc5aeb0 Reversing course on his threat to cut the state’s federal funding if Californians don’t solve their forest fire problem, President Trump now says he’ll solve it with them. “We go through this every year; we can’t go through this,” Trump said Saturday as he toured the state’s massive wildfire zones. “We’re going to have safe forests.” How to make California’s vast drought-stricken forests “safe” after the Camp Fire grew to the size of Chicago this month, killing dozens if not hundreds of people and burning an entire town to the ground? Trump promised federal funds and says he has some ideas. One of those ideas is raking. It’s not a popular idea. “You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forests, it’s very important,” Trump told reporters as he posed with California officials in the charred ruins of Paradise — his first stop on the tour. Trump went on to explain that the president of Finland, whom he met on an overseas trip a week earlier, told him about raking the forest floors. “He called it a forest nation,” Trump said, “and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem." Finnish President Sauli Niinisto later disputed this. He told a local newspaper that he had briefed Trump on Finland’s efforts to surveil and care for its forests, the Associated Press wrote, “but said he can’t recall anything being mentioned on raking.” Maybe it wasn’t Niinisto who gave Trump the raking idea. Maybe it was something he saw on TV. “I was watching the firemen the other day, and they were raking areas. They were raking areas!” Trump told Fox News from the Oval Office on Friday — before he left for California. “They’re raking trees, little trees like this — nut trees, little bushes, that you could see are totally dry. Weeds! And they’re raking them. They’re on fire.” “That should have been all raked out,” he concluded. “You wouldn’t have the fires.” The Fox host, Chris Wallace, asked whether climate change might not be a larger wildfire factor than unraked debris, but Trump didn’t think so. This is not to say that raking has nothing to do with fire prevention — even if it’s not the exotic and comprehensive solution Trump made it sound like. “His general sentiment is correct — that we need to manage fuels,” said Yana Valachovic a forest adviser with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension program. “And yeah, managing that pine litter adjacent to our homes and buildings is super important. … But the reality is, to manage every little bit of fuel with a rake is not practical.” Like Trump, Valachovic said the problem is solvable — but through long-term programs of community education, controlled burns, forest thinning and economic incentives. Much more than rakes, in other words. Something's really up with him lately.

"You know the *blank*, it's very important!" - Donald Trump on everything ever.

I will not be convinced that if presented with a shovel, garden shears, a rake, a pool cue, and a fishing net, Donald Trump could successfully identify which one was a rake, much less which ones weren't even gardening implements.

"Trust me, I'm the greatest *blank* you've ever seen" features heavily too.

We do controlled burns in Australia all the time to prevent ours. Does California do the same? If not why not?

They do, and they've done for a while. I'm pretty sure the difference in forest fires in California and Finland is that it isn't in a perpetual drought.

I'm thinking he meant Reiki, as a belief in the supernatural isn't exactly a new phenomenon for this man.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/391759032102289418/513943611176648724/man-holding-rake-young-isolated-white-background-40467404.png I'm ready to save California

My guess is he was shown some kind of presentation about Finnish industry while he was here that he didn't pay attention to because he's Trump. For once I can't really blame him because Finnish presentations are usually really dry and technical, even when the people making them are trying their best to make them interesting. Combine this with the usual monotone output of Finns and Trump was probably bored out of his eyeballs in ten minutes. What he most likely is referring to is the practice of thinning the forests by removing smaller and weaker trees, bushes and weeds and stuff to prevent them from sucking up nutrients from healthier trees that are being grown for industrial purposes. They are usually planted in grid patterns too so some finnish forests do look unsually "clean". You can do a quick lookup on Google Images and you'll see what I mean. Also in the northern areas the forests just kinda naturally look clean because it's an arctic region and things simply don't grow there.

As above. He's an idiot, but what he means is 'with effective forest management the effects of this disaster could have been lessened or mitigated entirely'. Personally, I'd love to see what the Californian government were doing r.e. forest management once the crisis is over. It sounds stupid, but as we can see, forest management is actually an important public service.

California needs a rake force

Can he not think of any other reason? Like, you know, Finland being a country that crosses the arctic circle...?

Arctic air is dry though, we have forest fire warnings every summer. And Sweden had pretty serious forest fires just this year as you as a Norwegian are probably aware.

rake n00z

Im starting to feel like we're on fire every summer now.

Time to go out and do some of my daily raking.

Shit, I gotta tell the peeps over in BC about this revelation!

They don't Finnish president denies ever discussing ‘raking’ with Trump “I mentioned [to] him that Finland is a land covered by forests and we also have a good monitoring system and network,” Niinistö said, adding that he recalled telling Trump: “We take care of our forests.”

He also fucked up the name of the town "Paradise" calling it "Pleasant"

Treating a massive wilderness like one of his golf courses. Man I'm so glad the united states elected such a wise businessman.

Oh yes, it's a wonderful program we have for dealing with the unemployed: we have them rake over 270,000 km2, or 80% of our entire bloody landmass. The other 19% is lakes, into which we throw homeless people so they can go fishing.

How the fuck are forest fires even real hahaha like just rake the floor my dudes lmao

You're right. I got it mixed with somewhere else.

this is defintely a case of Trump half listening to something then regurgitating it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-is-so-good-handling-forest-fires-hint-its-not-because-raking/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4f867c80c1af

fake news

Rake news

why take one word out of what he said and blow it up into a dozen articles when the base thing he said is true? proper management of the forest floor can help reduce the intensity of forest fires.

Except the federal government -- not California -- is responsible for the upkeep of this forest, and Trump's administration massively cut their budget. If it's anyone's fault, it's fucking Trump's.

shouldn't this be the article? seems much more important than "haha trump said u can rake the forest floor what a maroon xD"

I actually can't find a source stating that this specific wildfire was started due to a lack of federal oversight; however, the federal government is responsible for a certain amount of Californian forest. I can't find any information on who is responsible for the area(s) where the fire started, though.