California Family Accuses Kamala Harris of Trespassing on Their Fire-Ravaged Property

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Sep 18, 2020 07:16 AM EDT

A California family, who was affected by the raging wildfires in the state, has accused vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris of allegedly trespassing on their fire-ravaged property to stage a photo-op.

Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom posed together for pictures as they inspected damage caused by the fires in Auberry, near Fresno.

Harris and Newsom first inspected Pine Ridge Elementary school during the Sept. 15 trip before going across the street to the Patten family resident's destroyed home.

Harris described the neighborhood's remaining chimneys as "tombstones" while standing where the house once was.

However, the photo-op has offended the homeowners, saying that they are frustrated the politicians ventured into their property without permission when they themselves have not been allowed back to see the damage.

Trampas Patten, son of the homeowners, has slammed Harris.

"What has me really frustrated right now is the fact that these two politicians used my parents' loss for a photo opportunity to push their political agenda!" he said in a report.

Patten noted that political parties would not have made a difference in this moment, saying that decent human beings have character and class. Patten said people should think about this when they cast their vote in a few weeks.

He then asked the public if this is the kind of leadership they want - the one that uses "you and your loss for political gain."

Reports said the home remains under an evacuation order, and residents have not been allowed yet to return by officials.

Patten's sister, Bailee Patten, said that seeing the family's destroyed home for the first time on social media was devastating. She noted that that was the place where they grew up, and those were their memories.

"And to not have that, to feel so helpless and I guess that's what we've all been thinking, is that we were so helpless," she said in a report.

Wildfires

Record-breaking sizes of wildfires have been scorching the state of California.

According to a report, the smoke from the state's destructive wildfires gives California's skies a Martian look.

Last week, a fire burning in California's Sierra National Forest exploded in size. It trapped hundreds of Labor Day holiday campers who could only be rescued by helicopters. Fire officials said they have never seen a fire move so fast in forestland in a day.

Also last week, a wildfire in Plumas National Forest northeast of San Francisco had spread 25 miles in a day and burned around 400 square miles.

"We have seen multiple fires expand by tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours, and 30 years or more ago that just wasn't fire behavior that we saw," a professor of geography and the environment at Syracuse University who studies wildfires, Jacob Bendix, said in a report.

University of Utah fire expert Philip Dennison added that fires in California are moving faster and growing larger with hotter temperatures and longer fire seasons.