2020 Race: Donald Trump, Joe Biden clash on climate as fires rage

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have traded blows over the causes of the devastating wildfires on the US west coast.

Joe Biden, left, and Donald Trump, right, have clashed over wildfires. Pictures;

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have traded verbal blows over the causes of the devastating wildfires on the US West Coast that have destroyed entire towns and left at least 35 people dead, with many more missing.

Mr Biden used the disaster to attack the President over his climate change policies, saying the fires were another extreme weather event that reflected the global warming that Mr Trump had failed to take seriously.

“If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires? How many suburbs will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?” Mr Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if more of America is ablaze?

“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here and, unless we take urgent action, will soon be more catastrophic.”

A burned firetruck inside the charred remains of Butte County Fire Station 61 during the Bear fire in California. Picture: AFP.

But Mr Trump, who visited fire-hit California on Tuesday (AEST) said the main cause of the wildfires was poor forest management rather than climate change.

“When trees fall down, after a short period of time, about 18 months, they become very dry,” he said. “They become really like a matchstick … you know, there’s no more water pouring through and they become very, very — they just explode. They can explode.”

Mr Trump, who flew into Sacramento on the third day of a re-election campaign swing, pushed back when California National Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot blamed climate change for the fires.

“It will start getting cooler. You just watch,” Mr Trump said.

“I wish science agreed with you,” Mr Crowfoot replied. “If we ignore that science, and sort of put our head in the sand, and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.”

“I don’t think the science knows,” Mr Trump responded.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has argued that the fires are driven mostly by global warming, acknowledged as he met with Mr Trump that better forest management was needed.

Trump on climate change: "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch ... I don't think science knows, actually." pic.twitter.com/JdYzdrcjgq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2020

Donald Trump (R) speaks to California Governor Gavin Newsom at Sacramento McClellan Airport in McClellan Park, California. Picture: AFP.

But he said the overwhelming cause of the problem is far bigger. “The hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier,” he said.

“We submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident: that climate change is real and that is exacerbating this.”

Democrat vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was also set to tour the damage on Tuesday. Senator Harris has tweeted that Mr Trump has “denied evidence” the fires were “intensified by the climate crisis”.

Wildfires have raged for more than a week across a large section of the western US including California, Oregon and Washington state, burning more than two million hectares.

Most of the deaths have occurred in California and Oregon, where the wildfires are the worst in decades and have been fuelled partly by record heat.

Officials fear that when the smoke finally clears, the death toll will be far higher than the 35 deaths officially recorded so far.

Much of the West Coast remained coated in dense smog on Monday, with Portland the world’s most air-polluted city according to IQAir.

More than 30,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, with wind gusts and drier weather threatening more destructions.

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia

Embers from the Bear fire light up the hillside behind the Bidwell Bar bridge in Oroville, California.