On Friday afternoon, as several counties across California were being incinerated by late-season wildfires, President Donald Trump signed a declaration providing federal money for the emergency response. But the president clearly wasn’t happy about it. About 10 hours later, he made a threat: If California goes up in flames like this again, he might just let it burn.

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! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018

At the very moment Trump sent his Saturday morning tweet, the Camp Fire in Butte County was actively burning homes to the ground, and the 27,000 residents of Paradise, California were only beginning to take stock of their massive losses. Mere hours beforehand, thousands were fleeing the city in panic, many abandoning their cars and running through the woods to escape the rapidly-encroaching heat and suffocating smoke. Several people died. By Monday, the Camp Fire had become the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history.



“Oh my God.. embers are going in the car... I can’t hardly breathe...” Coming up on @NBCNightlyNews, video of one family’s terrifying escape from Paradise, California as flames close in. #CampFire #ButteCounty pic.twitter.com/YrIz6ptJ3F — Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) November 8, 2018

A few hundred miles south, the rapidly spreading Woolsey Fire and the nearby Hill Fire had just started picking up speed. When Trump sent his tweet, at least 75,000 homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties were under evacuation order. By Monday, that number had ballooned to 200,000. With only 20 percent of the fire contained, nearly 400 structures had been destroyed.



Was just sent this video from the Seminole Springs mobile home park in Malibu. Most got out with “just the shirt on their backs.” Now they’ve lost count after seeing more than 100 structures destroyed by the #WoolseyFire. 📷: Eric Videgain pic.twitter.com/HH2lOefzkh — Jon Passantino (@passantino) November 11, 2018

The death toll from the fires is still on the rise. So far, two have been found dead in the path of the Hill Fire, according to the Associated Press. And as of Monday, the Camp Fire had killed at least 29 people—though more than 200 remain unaccounted for. By the time the flames die down, thousands of people will have lost family and friends. A similar number will have lost their homes, and potentially everything they own.

That Trump would threaten California in the midst of this tragedy is, on its own, an act of cruelty. But his tweet was also plain wrong. He complained that the “costly” blazes wouldn’t have happened were it not for “gross mismanagement of the forests.” But there’s no dense forest surrounding the cities hit hardest by the fires. “The area that’s burned is not particularly foresty; it’s brush,” said Sharon McNary, a reporter for Southern California Public Radio. “It’s classic brush fire territory.” The Pasadena Firefighters Association also corrected the president: