San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
California gov confident Trump will send fire aid
SAN FRANCISCO — Gov.
Jerry Brown on Saturday called on President Donald Trump to help California fight and recover from another devastating wildfire season.
Brown, who inspected neighborhoods wiped out by a wildfire in the Northern California city of Redding, said he was confident that the president he has clashed with over immigration and pollution policies would send aid, which Trump did last year when California’s wine country was hit hard.
“The president has been pretty good on helping us in disasters, so I’m hopeful,” said Brown, a Democrat. “Tragedies bring people together.”
The National Weather Service forecasts hot and windy conditions will persist in Northern California.
There are 17 major fires burning throughout California, authorities said. They have destroyed hundreds of homes, killed eight people including four firefighters, and shut down Yosemite National Park.
Hundreds of colleagues, family and friends attended a memorial service Saturday in Fresno for National Forest Service Capt. Brian Hughes, the Fresno Bee reported. Hughes was killed last Sunday while fighting the wildfire that has closed Yosemite at the height of tourist season.
Firefighters have achieved 41 percent containment of that forest fire.
The fire had reached into remote areas of the country’s thirdoldest national park. Workers who live in Yosemite’s popular Valley region were ordered to leave Friday because of inaccessible roads.
The biggest blazes continue to burn north of San Francisco, including twin wildfires fueled by dry vegetation and hot, windy weather. Those fires destroyed 55 homes and forced thousands of residents to flee their neighborhoods about 100 miles north of the city. They have grown to a combined 300 square miles.
However, most evacuations were lifted by Saturday in and around Redding, where firefighters and fleets of aircraft continue battling a blaze about 100 miles south of the Oregon line.