Firefighters made progress on the more than 10,000-acre Hughes Fire Friday, which sent thousands fleeing after sparking near the Los Angeles County community of Castaic a day earlier.

The fire threat remains critical in Southern California, where thousands of residents were under evacuation orders Wednesday as fire crews battled the out-of-control Hughes Fire near Castaic, a suburb in the foothills and mountains of northern Los Angeles County.

As President Donald Trump prepares to tour wildfire damage in California, he’s zeroing in on one of his frequent targets for criticism: State water policy.

"I just want voter ID to start, and I want the water to be released, and they're going to get a lot of help from the U.S.," Trump said during a visit to North Carolina. On Wednesday Trump threatened to withhold aid and repeated a false claim that California Governor Gavin Newsom and other officials had refused to provide water from the northern part of the state to fight the fires.

Climate disasters such as the recent Los Angeles–area fires are making it harder to prepare for more climate disasters