The Camp Fire, named after Camp Creek Road where the blaze started, has killed at least 63 people with hundreds still unaccounted for and has destroyed more than 9,800 homes, largely in the town of Paradise. The US President visited California on Sunday to speak to those affected by the horrific fires. He praised local officials, first responders and military personnel, and said funding to rebuild the region will be expedited.
However, speaking to reporters in the town of Paradise, the American firebrand was involved in an embarrassing blunder after mistakenly calling the town “Pleasure”.
He said: “You are watching from New York or you are watching it from Washington DC and you don’t really see the gravity of it.
“I mean as big as they look on the tube, you don’t see what is going on until you come here and what we saw at Pleasure.”
“What a name right now!”
The group of reporters immediately corrected the President.
Trump then said: ”Or Paradise and what we saw at Paradise is just unacceptable.”
It is the second blunder the US President has been involved in during his visit to fire-ravaged California, as he prompted ridicule after suggesting the state should copy Finland in raking forest floors to prevent more wildfires.
He mentioned a conversation he said he had with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, saying: “You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story.
“I was with the President of Finland and he said, ‘We’re a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation. And they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things.
“And they don’t have any problem. And when it is, it’s a very small problem.”
However, Mr Niinistö told Ilta-Sanomat, the country’s second-largest newspaper, that he never discussed raking with Trump during their brief meeting in Paris last weekend.
The Finnish President noted: “I mentioned to him that Finland is a land covered by forests and we also have a good monitoring system and network.
“We take care of our forests.”