Biden warns wildfire threat ‘as severe as it’s ever been’
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would immediately combat the growing threat of wildfires with a larger and better paid federal firefighting force, warning that the danger the fires pose this year “is as severe as it’s ever been” amid widespread droughts in the region.
“We’re seeing wildfires of greater intensity that move with more speed and last well beyond traditional months, the traditional months of the fire season,” Biden said. “And that’s a problem for all of us.”
The president spoke at the White House during a meeting with Cabinet officials, business leaders and Western state governors — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee — to discuss how the federal government can improve its response to wildfires. The meeting comes a year after the worst wildfires on record in California that burned more than double the acreage of the previous record, and amid fears that this year could be similarly destructive.
In addition to paying firefighters more, the president laid out a series of plans to reduce the impact of the fires in the near and long term, including using technology to better track them and offering grants to state and local governments — out of a $1 billion pool of federal money meant to help state and local governments prepare for natural disasters — to help make their communities more resilient to wildfires.
The federal government must do more to help, Biden told the governors, as climate change increases the size and severity of wildfires.
“Wildfires are not a partisan phenomenon,” Biden said. “They don’t stop at a county or state line, or a country line for that matter. We need a coordinated, comprehensive response with all the federal government working in close cooperation with you, the states.”
The White House effort marks a major shift in tone toward wildfires from the previous administration, when former President Donald Trump frequently blamed the states for not doing more to combat wildfires and threatened to withhold federal funding for their efforts. Federal agencies manage about 57% of California forestland.
The difference was not lost on Newsom, participating in the meeting via videoconference, who embraced Biden’s plan and said the last president too often felt like a “sparring partner.”
“We have an opportunity to turn the page on the finger pointing and the rhetoric,” Newsom said. “We were debating raking policies, literally, debating raking policies in this country in the last few years. But our eyes are wide open.”
Newsom said he was speaking just a few miles from the site of the Lava Fire in Northern California, one of many fires that have already sparked in the Western region of the country amid soaring temperatures and deep drought.
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Biden warns wildfire threat ‘as severe as it’s ever been’."