Schools and tourist attractions across the San Francisco Bay Area were shut Friday and residents were urged to stay indoors as smoke from California’s deadliest wildfire — a three-hour drive away — produced air quality levels worse than in South Asia’s polluted megacities.
The closures came as President Donald Trump was set to visit the western state Saturday to survey the damage and meet victims of the giant Camp Fire that has devoured an area roughly the size of Chicago since it broke out last week, killing at least 63 people.
In an interview with Fox News ahead of his visit, Trump doubled-down on his earlier claim that mismanagement of Califonia’s forests was to blame for the fires. But he acknowledged that climate change may have contributed “a little bit” to the wildfires.
“You need forest management. It has to be,” Trump told Fox. “I’m not saying that in a negative way, a positive — I’m just saying the facts.”
More than 600 people…