Trump’s Finland forest fire claim sparks ‘rake news’ reports in Nordic nation
- US president quoted Finnish counterpart as saying garden rakes were why his country had few forest fires, despite being 70 per cent covered in trees
Social media in Finland was ablaze with bemused comments on Monday after US President Donald Trump claimed the forest-covered nation prevents wildfires by raking its forest floors.
Speaking to reporters over the weekend while in California to see the impact of devastating forest fires, the US president blamed forest management, but said Finland had the answer.
Trump cited the Finnish president as telling him Finns “spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things [in the forest] and they don’t have any problem”.
However the Nordic country’s president, Sauli Niinisto, told the Ilta-Sanomat newspaper on Sunday he had no recollection of raking being mentioned when the pair met in Paris a week ago.
“I told him that Finland is a country covered in forests, but we also have a good warning system and network,” the president said.