It was inevitable — a huge swath of Southern California was ablaze in one of the worst wildfires in the state’s history, yet all that gasbag liberals could do in the face of this disaster was to go looking for someone to blame.

While hundreds of heroic firefighters risk life and limb to save as many homes as possible, and state and federal disaster officials bend every effort to put in place all the firefighting assets available to them, the likes of Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer and their allies scurry to use this immense tragedy to make political capital out of it.

Reid was bad enough, dredging up the specter of imagined global warming to explain why California was burning, but Sen. Boxer outdid him by reaching down into her bag of slime to blame the fact that the fires were beyond the control of firefighters on the war in Iraq and the fact that many California National Guards-men were

involved there on the firing line and not at home on the fire lines.

They ignore a few salient facts, such as the reality that California is a bone-dry desert filled with highly flammable undergrowth and subject to a phenomenon known as Santa Ana winds, which at this time of the year tend to come roaring down the valleys towards heavily populated areas, ready to spread the fires that inevitably erupt in the fall months.

Given those facts, it is easy to understand — if you want to understand — why, from time to time, this tinderbox of an area is given to destructive wildfires.

But the partisan liberals who infest the political arena in California don’t want to understand, and they certainly don’t want you to understand these simple facts. They want to use such natural disasters to fan the flames of anger at the president and anybody else who doesn’t share their ultra left-wing views and agenda.

What they want most, however, is to direct your attention away from the real culprits — their ardent supporters among the environmentalist extremists, whose agenda they fully support and sanction through laws they enact at every opportunity.

The very warmth and dry climate that all but guarantee wildfire outbreaks are the exact reasons why people live here. And recurrent wildfires that threaten their homes and their lives are the price they pay to escape the harshness of winter and the summertime humidity that plague much of the nation.

All through the winter there is a huge influx of people from colder climates coming here to enjoy a warm, dry climate.

Californians understand this. They know the fires will come. It’s the price nature makes them pay and when the bill arrives they shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives.

Most of all, they don’t scurry around looking for somebody to blame. They are adults.

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally.