'Talk to a firefighter if climate change is real’: LA mayor eviscerates ‘Flat Earth’ Trump on environmental crisis ahead of visit

At least eight dead and thousands forced to evacuate in America’s West

The mayor of Los Angeles has delivered a scathing attack on Donald Trump - accusing him of having his head stuck in the sand over climate change, as wildfires tear through the American West.

Ahead of a visit to California by the president on Monday, where he is to be briefed on the fires that have killed at least people and forced thousands to evacuate, Eric Garcetti said he doubted Mr Trump would do much to help the situation.

“He’s going to come out here and probably tell us 'I’m going to send you rakes’ instead of more help,” he said on CNN, on Sunday morning. “We need actual help, not based on our party affiliation.’

At a rally in Nevada on Saturday night, the president repeated his claim that the fires were caused by poor forest management, and did not mention climate change. He has previously said the issue was a lack of “raking” of forests.

“Tonight our hearts are with all of the communities in the west battling devastating wildfires,” he said.

“They’ve never had anything like this, but you know it is about forest management. Please remember the words. Very simple: forest management.”

Mr Garcetti said the president was playing politics, and ignoring the opinions of the vast majority of experts who have pointed to the role of climate change in both the frequency of wildfires, but also their intensity.

“I listened to fire professionals, not the president of the United States or a politician, when it comes to actually what causes these fires. It's been very clear that years of drought that we're seeing - whether it's too much water and too much rain in parts of our country right now, or too little - this is climate change,” he said.

“This is an administration that's put its head in the sand…Talk to a firefighter if you think that climate change isn't real.”

Mr Garcetti, who is a Democrat, said it appeared the Trump administration represented “the last vestiges of the Flat Earth Society of this generation”.  

He added: “We need real action. We need to actually reduce the carbon emissions.”

Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, which has perhaps been hardest hit by the fires, also denounced the president’s claim over poor forest management, as “a devastating lie”.

“The president has said it's all about raking the forest. It's just a — a big and devastating lie,” he told ABC News.

“The Cascade snowpacks have gotten smaller. Our forests have gotten drier. Our ocean has gotten warmer and more acidic. And this has been happening steadily over the last several decades.”

On Saturday, Mr Trump’s rival in the November election, Joe Biden, also attacked the president.

“The science is clear, and deadly signs like these are unmistakable — climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to our way of life,” he said in a statement.  

“President Trump can try to deny that reality, but the facts are undeniable. We absolutely must act now to avoid a future defined by an unending barrage of tragedies like the one American families are enduring across the West today.”