Salty Cracker and Wall Street Apes are now insinuating it. The op was a success, they've created a narrative binary where either space lasers did it or climate change (MSM narrative) did it. Meanwhile the much more likely story (strategic arson ahead of high winds + collusion with crooked state and local officials to mishandle the response on purpose) has effectively been shoved under the rug. Now instead of having the entire internet digging into that to possibly find some arsonists or conspiracies to mishandle response, they are instead "laser focused" on space lasers.
Of course, if the DEW theory is correct, this is fine. I just don't think it is.
endrant
And the answer is: shooting down ballistic missiles in boosting flight. No secret about that. Not only does the turret need to acquire the elevation and azimuth of the target independent of the motion of the airplane, it has to be able to rotate the aperture to face aft so it is not continually exposed to the airstream while not in use.
Using it to shoot at the ground fails on several counts. (1) There is no targeting system or targeting concept for ground targets. (I actually analyzed this problem for the YAL-1A program.) (2) If there are clouds below the YAL-1A, no targets will be seen (if it had the sensors to see them with, which it did not). (3) If there are water clouds below the YAL-1A, there is the likelihood they would absorb the beam (water is an absorber of most infrared radiation). (4) If there are smoke clouds, the target would be obscured and the beam would be scattered.
This is all idle bullshitting, as the YAL-1A was scrapped not long after its mission success in 2010. Existing DEWs under field test are designed to engage air targets only from the ground or water surface. If you want to light a fire, use a match. Much easier, and it doesn't put you into the wild-eyed ignoramus camp.