Do Newsom’s wildfire “fact checks” align with the facts? A breakdown.

As California officials sought to tamp down false claims about the devastating wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom created “California Fire Facts,” a page on his website to counter what he called “lies” about the California fires. 

Among the claims the governor sought to debunk were some related to his management of the state’s firefighting resources and forest management. Many of the claims had been promoted by President Trump, who has criticized Newsom and plans to visit California on Friday to survey wildfire damage in Los Angeles County. 

CBS News Confirmed checked the governor’s “fact checks” and found that although many were correct, a few of them omitted crucial context. Here’s what we know. 

CLAIM: Newsom says he did not cut California’s fire budget

Newsom called reports by Fox News and others that California cut its fire budget by $100 million in the months before the fire, “a ridiculous lie” — countering that Cal Fire’s personnel and budget have almost doubled since 2019. 

While it’s true Cal Fire’s overall budget has grown significantly since Newsom took office in 2019, he did approve cuts of over $100 million to wildfire-related funding initiatives last year.

In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, Cal Fire received $2.5 billion and had 7,182 personnel, compared to $4.2 billion and 12,511 personnel in the 2024-2025 budget, according to the state’s legislative analyst’s office. This represents a large increase.

However, in the last fiscal year, wildfire-related funding was cut by over $100 million. These cuts came from reductions to a one-time surplus funding package for several state departments. A proposed budget initially cut $101 million, but the final budget reduced it by $144 million.

Those reductions meant $12 million in cuts for “home hardening,” $6 million for Cal Fire’s “forest data program,” and $5 million for prescribed fires, among many other items.

But it’s unlikely most of the cuts would have prevented the L.A. fires, according to two wildfire experts who spoke with CBS News. They said more efforts to do prescribed fires or clear brush in Southern California would likely not have stopped the wildfires in the L.A. area.

Jon Keeley, a senior scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “There’s very little evidence that prescription burning would ever do anything to stop an event like what we saw this past week. We don’t have an unusual accumulation of fuels by and large. But more important than that, our worst fires occur during the Santa Ana wind conditions.”

Chris Field, a climate scientist at Stanford who has studied controlled burns, agreed: “The L.A. fires reflect the combination of very strong winds and very dry fuels. It is not likely that fuel reduction would have helped.”

CLAIM: Newsom says California did not run out of water and reservoirs are at record levels

The governor called claims that California ran out of water and that reservoirs are empty a “lie,” adding that reservoirs in Southern California are at record levels.

That’s mostly true. State data show all but three of California’s major reservoirs are at or above historical average levels.

However, the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir near the Palisades fire was out of service when the fires began. Newsom said he is launching an independent state investigation into the loss of water pressure and unavailability of water from the Santa Ynez Reservoir.

And it’s also true that some hydrants in the Pacific Palisades area temporarily ran dry amid intense demand as crews battled the Palisades Fire.

All three 1-million-gallon water tanks in the area ran out of water by 3 a.m. on Jan. 8, reducing water pressure for fire hydrants at higher elevations, officials said. 

Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said officials filled all available water storage tanks before the fires began, but “extreme demand” caused the tanks to be refilled at a slower rate. 

Fire officials acknowledged the urban system was not set up to fight this scale of wildfire, pulling from so many hydrants at the same time. 

CLAIM: Newsom says California’s smelt fish policy did not lead to L.A.-area wildfires

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, President Trump said Newsom “can release the water that comes from the north” to help the state fight devastating wildfires, and suggested the federal government should not “give California anything” until it changes its water policy.

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump was repeating a claim he made after the fires broke out, alleging that Newsom had previously “refused to sign the water restoration declaration” to allow water from Northern California to flow down into the Los Angeles area and claiming that state officials prioritized a small fish, called a smelt, over residents.

The governor’s office responded to the post on social media, saying there was no such declaration and suggesting that it was “outlandish” to make a connection between the smelt fish and wildfires. 

Mr. Trump is correct that California did block his plan during his first administration to redirect water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta down to farms and cities further south, after environmental groups opposed the plan due to concerns over endangered salmon and smelt.  

But that is not the reason the fire hydrants near Pacific Palisades ran dry. As previously noted, city officials said three 1-million-gallon water tanks that feed the hydrants in the Palisades area ran out of water because there was such high demand that they couldn’t refill the tanks fast enough. 

And experts told CBS News additional water from another part of the state would not have made a difference to the firefighting response.

“Plenty of water is flowing into Southern California,” said Brent Haddad, an environmental studies professor at the University of California. “The problem is that when city water infrastructure was built decades ago, planners didn’t anticipate the conditions brought on by global warming.”

Mark Gold, a Metropolitan Water District of Southern California board member, noted Southern California has ample water supply but a lack of rain in the region dried out vegetation. Combined with extreme winds, the wildfires spread rapidly.