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Trump tweets about California wildfires 10 days after they began to engulf state

Fires have raged for more than a week before President weighed in 

Jeremy B. White
San Francisco
Wednesday 18 October 2017 20:52 BST
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Firefighters battle a wildfire near Santa Rosa
Firefighters battle a wildfire near Santa Rosa

Ten days and more than 200,000 scorched acres later, Donald Trump has tapped out a Twitter response to California’s devastating wildfires.

The president regularly uses Twitter to communicate with the American people, issuing 140-character policy proclamations or messages of support. But in the days since powerful winds ignited voracious wildfires across California’s wine country, Mr Trump’s hadn’t specifically tweeted a word on the catastrophe.

Finally breaking the Twitter silence, Mr Trump wrote that “Our hearts are with all affected by the wildfires in California”, praising the first responders who have been battling the blazes.

Dry vegetation and whipping winds have helped propel some of the worst infernos in California’s history. Since the fires began last Sunday evening, at least 42 people have died and thousands of homes and businesses have been reduced to ash - the town of Santa Rosa alone has lost well over 2,000 homes.

The Trump administration has not been absent from the effort to combat the flames. Mr Trump authorized a federal disaster declaration days after the conflagrations began, which directed federal resources to California, and White Home Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders opened a briefing last Tuesday by saying “our hearts go out to the people of California who are enduring the wildfires taking place now”.

During a speech in Pennsylvania last week, Mr Trump said “our hearts are also with the victims of the wildfires”, a clip of which he shared in a tweet whose text made no mention of the fires. Earlier this week, president batted down a question from a reporter who suggested California felt “left out”.

“We have FEMA there. We have military there. We have first responders there. It’s a tragic situation. But we're working very closely with the representatives from California, and we're doing a good job”, Mr Trump said, interrupting the reporter.

But that concern was not reflected on Mr Trump’s preferred medium of Twitter, where he was otherwise prolific. The president has tweeted more than 100 times since last Monday, when officials began to grasp the devastating scale of fires that had led to frantic overnight evacuations.

Deadly fires rage across California

Topics he addressed before Wednesday morning’s message of solidarity included the booming stock market - a subject Mr Trump returned to numerous times - and protests by NFL players. He has repeatedly lashed out at the news media, former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, congressional Democrats and Republican senator Bob Corker.

Firefighters have been making steady progress against the blazes. The two major fires that have threatened population centers in Sonoma County and Napa County, the hub of California wine country, were both more than 80 percent contained as of Wednesday morning. Some evacuated residents have been able to begin returning home.

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