CALIFORNIA • Mr Joe Biden branded US President Donald Trump a "climate arsonist" on Monday for refusing to acknowledge global warming's role in deadly wildfires sweeping the western United States, while Mr Trump blamed lax forestry and declared: "I don't think science knows."
Dozens of conflagrations have raged with unprecedented scope across some 1.8 million ha in Oregon, California and Washington states since last month, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 36 people.
The fires have also filled the region's air with harmful levels of smoke and soot, bathing skies in eerie tones of orange and sepia.
Ten deaths have been confirmed during the past week in Oregon, the latest flashpoint in a larger summer outbreak of fires accompanied by catastrophic lightning storms, record-breaking heatwaves and bouts of extreme winds.
Those conditions gave way over the weekend to cooler, moister weather and calmer winds, enabling weary firefighters to gain ground in efforts to outflank blazes.
But fire managers warned that the battle was hardly over. Thunderstorms forecast for later in the week could bring much-needed rain but also more lightning.
At least 25 people have died in the California wildfires since mid-August and one fatality has been confirmed in Washington state.
More than 6,200 homes and other structures have been lost.
Mr Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, spoke from his home state of Delaware on the threat of increasingly frequent weather extremes that scientists have said is evidence that climate change is supercharging the fires.
"I think this is more of a management situation," Mr Trump answered, when asked by a reporter if climate change was a factor behind the fires. Without mentioning large wildfires that have raged elsewhere in recent years - from southern Europe to Australia to Siberia - he asserted that other countries "don't have this problem".
The Trump administration has long sought to pin the blame for large wildfires on state officials, saying fuel-choked forests and scrub need to be thinned and flammable debris cleared from forest floors.
Mr Trump said improved forest management was something that could be tackled quickly, while climate change would require international cooperation that was lacking.
"When you get into climate change, well, is India going to change its ways? And is China going to change its ways? And Russia?" he said.
Mr Trump has referred to climate change as a "hoax", and in 2017 pulled the US out of the Paris accords laying out an international approach to global warming.
Mr Biden, who leads Mr Trump in national polls ahead of the Nov 3 election, has listed climate change as a major crisis facing the US.
Calling Mr Trump a "climate arsonist", Mr Biden said: "If we have four more years of Trump's climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned by wildfires? How many suburban neighbourhoods will have been flooded out?"
California Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged more needs to be done to better manage forests to reduce fire risks, but countered that global warming was nevertheless a driving factor in the newly extreme wildfire behaviour.
He reminded Mr Trump that 57 per cent of forest land in California is under federal ownership.
"We come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident - that climate change is real, and that it is exacerbating this," Mr Newsom said.
Mr Trump, who has authorised federal disaster aid for California and Oregon, questioned it.
"It'll start getting cooler, you just watch," he said. "I don't think science knows."
REUTERS
