Trump visits site of Camp Fire: 71 now dead; more than 1,000 missing

California's Camp Fire. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/NASA/NASA Joshua Stevens

Nov. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday visited a site hit by California’s Camp Fire, which has killed at least 71 people, the Butte County Fire Department said.

The department tallied the fire’s damage in a news release late Friday. The fire was responsible for at least 71 civilian deaths, three firefighter injuries and the destruction of more than 9,800 residences, it said.

Trump flew to California and surveyed the scene Saturday. His presidential motorcade pulled into a mobile home and RV park in the badly damaged town of Paradise.

“Right now we want to take care of the people who have been so badly hurt,” Trump said. “This is very sad to see. As far as the lives are concerned, nobody knows quite yet.”

As reporters questioned him, Trump stood by his remarks last week when he threatened on Twitter to withhold federal funds, blaming forest management for “gross mismanagement of the forests.”

“Other countries do it differently, it’s a whole different story,” Trump said, citing purported comments from the president of Finland on how that country deals with its forests.

They engage in “raking and cleaning things and they don’t have any problem,” he added.

Trump is also expected to stop in Southern California where a gunman killed a dozen people in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 7 before killing himself.

California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice, who has called the president’s tweet “ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning” to victims and firefighters, said Trump’s visit was welcome.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office has published a list of 630 missing individuals. The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN each reported the number of people missing has topped 1,000.

Eight people were recently found dead inside structures in Paradise, Calif., and another was found dead inside a structure in Magalia, a news release from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office said.

The largest and deadliest fire in state history, the Camp Fire has grown to 146,000 acres since it was started on Nov. 8, the fire department said. The cause is under investigation.

Authorities hope to reach full containment of the blaze by Nov. 30. As of Friday, more than 5,600 fire personnel had worked to get the blaze 50 percent contained, according to a Cal Fire update.

Air quality has suffered as the fire continues to burn. At 5 p.m. local time Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency said San Francisco’s air quality was at 158 on the air quality index, considered unhealthy, while other parts of the Bay Area had index readings considered very unhealthy.

Earlier Friday, index readings peaked at 271 in San Francisco on Thursday, making it the worst air quality in the city’s recorded history, the Chronicle reported.

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