Trump said protection for a NorCal fish limits water resources to fight fires in SoCal. That's false

Some politicians have claimed that protections for a tiny endangered fish species called the delta smelt are impeding firefighters' abilities to battle the blaze because of water diversion, but that claim is false.

In a post on Truth Social about the alleged "water restoration declaration," President Donald Trump accused Gov. Newsom of caring more about protecting the fish than protecting Californians, alleging that Newsom diverted water from residents to protect the fish.

"He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn't work!), but didn't care about the people of California," Trump wrote, apparently referring to the 2019 presidential memorandum that he signed and that Newsom filed suit to block, saying at the time that it "puts at risk Delta smelt, Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, and other fish species."

The implication is that the limits on how much water can be pumped out of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary, known as the Bay-Delta, where delta smelt live, is affecting the water supply needed to fight the fires.

"The claim that Delta smelt protections in the Bay-Delta estuary are limiting the amount of water exported to southern California, which, in turn, would affect the amount of water available for emergency response, has no merit whatsoever," Overhouse, from Defenders of Wildlife, told ABC News.

Overhouse said even the most protective regulations for delta smelt, under former President Barack Obama's administration, only accounted for about 1.2% of additional Bay-Delta outflow.

It's important to keep in mind-- by the numbers-- much of Southern California is in the grips of drought

ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler, Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.