Twelve hours after blasting local officials and threatening to cut of federal funds, President Donald Trump has adopted a more statesmanlike tone on the disaster wildfires in California.
‘More than 4,000 are fighting the Camp and Woolsey Fires in California that have burned over 170,000 acres,’ Trump tweeted around 5pm on Saturday.
‘Our hearts are with those fighting the fires, the 52,000 who have evacuated, and the families of the 11 who have died. The destruction is catastrophic. God Bless them all.’
Trump continued: ‘These California fires are expanding very, very quickly (in some cases 80-100 acres a minute). If people don’t evacuate quickly, they risk being overtaken by the fire. Please listen to evacuation orders from State and local officials!’
It came about 12 hours after Trump threatened to withhold federal payments to California over ‘gross mismanagement’ of its forests as the state is ravaged by three massive wildfires.
In a 2am ET tweet while traveling in France, Trump wrote: ‘There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.
‘Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!’
On Friday evening Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds to help the thousands of firefighters struggling to contain the flames that have already torched more than 200 square miles across the state.
Businesses continue to burn under a darkened smokey sky in Paradise, north of Sacramento, California on Friday
The blaze has incinerated most of the Northern California town of Paradise and killed at least nine people.
The Camp Fire in Butte County north of Sacramento was only five percent contained as of 1.30am local time Saturday.
In Southern California, the Hill and Woolsey fires have already scorched more than 40,000 acres, forcing more than 250,000 residents near Ventura and Los Angeles counties to evacuate.
Those fires, which remain at zero percent contained as of Saturday morning, descended on the town of Thousand Oaks from both sides, threatening the community still reeling from a mass shooting that left a dozen dead at a local bar Wednesday night.
This map shows the three major fires ravaging California, two in the south and one in the north