Sunday found President Trump, who is on an eleven-day “working vacation,” staying at his resort in New Jersey, tweeting for the first time about the CA wildfires.
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
CNN — July 23rd on a road near Redding, CA, a trailer had a flat tire, a normal occurrence typically just an annoyance, but this time, a normal everyday annoyance that hinders travelers, started a blaze, when the metal rim dragged across the asphalt leading to California’s sixth most destructive wildfire in the states history.
The Carr fire as of late Sunday according to the linked CNN article, stood at 43 percent containment. It has burned more than 160,000 acres and it has claimed the lives of seven people. Two of which were children, four and five year old siblings, along with their great grandmother. Two of the victims of the blaze were firefighters, one an unidentified bulldozer operator, the other Jeremy Stoke, both died while evacuating residents. The latest victim was a twenty-year old employee of Pacific Gas & Electric, he died while helping a crew restore power.
FEMA — Over the weekend the White House approved a “disaster declaration,” which allows affected residents to seek federal assistance, that includes, “grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.”
Governor Jerry Brown wrote in his request for federal assistance, via CNN, “Battling these relentless fires requires a Herculean effort,” that effort is being waged by more than 14,000 firefighters across the state as heat and low humidity along with high winds fuel the relentless blazes. Exhausted firefighters will soon be joined by international fire crews from Australia and New Zealand, Cal Fire Director Ken Pimlott, told CNN they are due to arrive sometime Monday.
Another blaze nearly doubled in size over the weekend, the Mendocino Complex Fire, which was originally two separate blazes that have now combined to be the states fourth-largest in history, the linked CNN article has that fire listed at 33 percent containment. It has burned nearly 266,982 acres.
Another deadly fire in Northern California, the Ferguson Fire, has been burning for three weeks, led to the closure of some of the most popular parts of Yosemite National Park, indefinitely, officials announced on Sunday, via CNN, that over the past forty-eight hours the fire had impacted all of the roads, “Over the past 48 hours, fire has impacted all of the roads used to access Yosemite Valley, burning dead and downed trees that can become very explosive and fall without warning.”
The Ferguson Fire has taken the lives of two people and injured eleven others. Early Monday found that fire at 38 percent containment and has burned an estimated 89,633 acres.
*Editors Note — The featured image is of earlier fires that burned in San Diego as was reported at The News Blender
