Nov. 17, 2018, 6:31 p.m.
The death toll from California’s worst fire on record rose to 76 as President Trump vowed Saturday to help California recover from the devastation and work to prevent catastrophic blazes.
The number of those still unaccounted for continued to rise, standing at 1,276 people as of Saturday night. But Butte County officials said the list is far from precise and could include duplicates as well as the names of people who have not checked in with loved ones or authorities.
The remains of five more people were found Saturday.
Nov. 17, 2018, 5:25 p.m.
Rain is likely to fall over areas recently affected by the Camp and Woolsey fires in the coming week, weather experts said.
Though it’s too early to give more precise estimates, meteorologists have “very high confidence” that Butte County will get 4 to 5 inches of rain from Tuesday night through the weekend, with the heaviest rain Thanksgiving night, said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“That’s going to be spread out over a period of days … not coming down all at once,” he said. That may be a good sign.
Typically, debris flows are expected when rain falls at half an inch per hour or more, said David Gomberg of the weather service. That means the rain would have to be fairly heavy to lead to mudslides.
In Southern California, there’s about a 50% chance of rain over the areas affected by the Woolsey fire as early as Wednesday, Gomberg said. If the rain does come, the weather service expects the area to get a quarter to three-quarters of an inch of rain.
“It doesn’t look like a real heavy rain producer,” he said. “In San Bernardino County … it’s very high certainty you’ll get some rain, and going south into Ventura and Los Angeles counties, the probability weakens.”
Nov. 17, 2018, 4:29 p.m.
President Trump, after touring areas of Malibu burned by the Woolsey fire, said he will meet with families of victims of the Borderline Bar and Grill mass shooting in Thousand Oaks.
Twelve people were killed when an ex-Marine opened fire at the bar, which was hosting a college night. The shooting occurred hours before the Woolsey fire ignited, burning homes in Ventura County and forcing evacuations in Thousand Oaks.
Trump called the shooting horrible and noted it occurred in a “perfect area” that had a very low crime rate.
Nov. 17, 2018, 3:34 p.m.
President Trump arrived in Point Mugu on Saturday afternoon after a flight from Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County.
Accompanied by Gov. Jerry Brown, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long, the president shook hands with greeters on the tarmac.
The presidential motorcade left Naval Air Station Point Mugu about 3:25 p.m. to tour areas affected by the Woolsey fire, which has grown to more than 98,000 acres, destroyed 836 structures and killed three people.
Later, Trump addressed reporters who asked about his views on climate change and gun control in light of the Woolsey fire and the Borderline bar shooting, which both struck Thousand Oaks.
“We’ll be looking at everything,” he said. “It’s land management — it’s forest management, really is what you mean. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
He did not address his views on gun control but said he would be meeting with families who lost loved ones in the Thousand Oaks shooting, a “horrible event in a great area.”
When asked about whether his relationship is now improved with the California leaders he has so openly criticized, Trump said, “I think we’ve developed a good relationship.” He reached toward Newsom standing several feet away, patting his back and shaking his hand.
Nov. 17, 2018, 3:08 p.m.
Carol Bretonne, 78, stood in line behind more than a dozen people, waiting for the doors of a Malibu courthouse to open. The courthouse was serving as a disaster center for victims of the Woolsey fire.
Bretonne wanted to find out what services would be offered to help rebuild her Malibu home. It was her second time she lost everything.
A 1978 blaze swallowed her house. A year later, she started construction on the boxy structure that was consumed in the Woolsey blaze. Now, she wondered if she could shoulder the high cost of debris removal, which her insurance doesn’t cover.
“We lost our neighborhood,” she said. A week after she lost her home, Bretonne also lost her mother to old age. The double tragedies have left her unconcerned about President Trump, who Saturday afternoon was making his way to Malibu to assess wildfire damage.
Nov. 17, 2018, 2:24 p.m.
President Trump’s rhetoric on California’s wildfires has been a source of consternation for some.
Last week, he was widely criticized for blaming the state’s deadly fires on poor forest management, an idea experts were quick to debunk. But during his visit to Paradise, Calif., on Saturday morning, Trump made similar comments about forest management.
Addressing reporters after surveying what was left of the Skyway Villa Mobile Home and RV Park, Trump praised Finland, which he called “a forest nation” for doing things differently.
“They spend a lot of time raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem," he told reporters Saturday. ‘I know everybody’s looking at that.”
Twitter users quickly responded, using the hashtag #RakeAmericaGreatAgain to criticize the president’s statements.
Nov. 17, 2018, 2:23 p.m.
As President Trump makes his second visit to California since taking office, to view the damage caused by the deadly Camp and Woolsey fires, those who were forced to flee questioned his motives Saturday.
Carrie Armstrong, 57, of Topanga said she read the statement Trump posted on Twitter as the Woolsey fire in Malibu raged through the canyon and threatened her home. That tweet, posted a week ago, blamed the wildfires on poor forest management and misappropriation of funds.
For Armstrong, the erroneous remark added what she said was a new level of betrayal by the president.
Nov. 17, 2018, 1:08 p.m.
President Trump, Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Saturday toured the devastation left by the Camp fire in Paradise, Calif.
Along with Jody Jones, Paradise’s mayor and Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Trump walked through a smoky haze among the ruins of Skyway Villa Mobile Home and RV Park.
He held his hands to his waist and looked around him, surveying the damage of the state’s most destructive wildfire that killed 71 people with more than 1,000 unaccounted for.
Nov. 17, 2018, 11:58 a.m.
On the morning the Camp fire broke out, Pam Weaver was talking to her cousin on the phone about California’s recovery from the Santa Rosa fires last year.
Just then, she looked out her window and saw embers flying everywhere. She had to evacuate.
One week later, Weaver waited in line Saturday at the disaster recovery center at the Chico Mall. The line at the center, managed by Butte County and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was hundreds of people long, snaking around the building.
Nov. 17, 2018, 11:43 a.m.
President Trump did not speak with journalists after landing at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California on Saturday morning.
The president was accompanied by White House senior advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and Ken Calvert (R-Corona). Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom met Trump on the tarmac, according to a White House pool report.
Trump was roundly criticized last week for erroneously blaming the fires on poor forest management and threatening to cut off funding to California. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), who was also traveling with the president on Saturday, talked to reporters on the significance of forest management before Air Force One landed in California.