For the past few days, wildfires have been raging across Southern California, devastating an area The Washington Post reports has grown to be “almost as big as the city of Orlando.” And although we’d never wish such a destructive and calamitous event on anyone, it is not without a healthy sense of irony that we report that Rupert Murdoch’s property has been caught up in the blaze. That’s according to Variety, which cites local NBC News video footage showing what the outlet believed to be Murdoch’s house in flames recorded earlier today. Murdoch’s estate covers 16 acres and includes a vineyard as well as Murdoch’s 7,724 square foot home, guest house, and office building.
Murdoch’s media empire has metaphorically been in flames over the past year or so, amid the flurry of sexual harassment and racial discrimination lawsuits and high-profile firings that have gone down at Murdoch’s Fox News. The whole thing works on another, more meme-based level as well, if you picture Murdoch and Fox News as the dog in the jaunty hat metaphorically declaring “this is fine” with reports on candy and cheeseburger emojis as the world burns around them. That’s all a long and unnecessarily detailed way of saying that a climate change denier’s estate is currently burning down in one of the wildfires scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change.