WASHINGTON: Nearly 31 people have been killed and dozens of others remain missing amid unprecedented wildfires on the US West Coast.
With the blazes still spreading and many homes destroyed, Oregon’s director of emergency management said this week that the state feared a “mass fatality incident.” Three additional deaths in the state were announced after his warning, and later on Saturday, Nathan Sickler, the sheriff in Jackson County, Ore, said recovery crews had found the remains of a total of five people this week in the wreckage of the Almeda Fire.
Fires have been raging in Oregon, California and Washington for three weeks. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
Mr Trump, who is due to visit California on Monday to be briefed on the latest situation, on Saturday blamed the wildfires on poor forest management.
The smoke pollution from the wildfires has left Oregon’s largest city, Portland, with the worst air quality in the world, followed by San Francisco and Seattle,
Ms Kalinga