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President Biden visited California on Monday to talk about efforts to better protect the state against severe wildfires that have burned more than two million acres, displaced thousands of people and brought responders to the brink of extinction.
“These fires are flashing code red for our nation,” said Mr Biden, who took this opportunity to promote two pending bills in Congress that would fund forest management and more resilient infrastructure and tackle global warming. The country “cannot ignore the fact that these wildfires are being fueled by climate change,” he said.
But experts say that, at least in the short term, what the federal government can do to reduce the scale and destructive power of the fires is limited. These experts said it is because much of the power needed rests with state and local governments.
Federal action largely depends on Congress getting the new funding approved – but even if approved, that money may not make much difference anytime soon.
“The effects of climate change cannot be eliminated in a single year,” said Roy Wright, who until 2018 was responsible for risk reduction at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The goal, he said, “must be investments that will pay back.” The next three to five years.”
In bushfires, like so many other things, President Biden has presented himself as the opposite of former President Donald J. Trump: He’s clear on the role of climate change, willing to listen to experts, and pledged to better defend places like California against a growing threat.
“How many suburbs will burn in bushfires if we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial?” Mr. Biden said in a speech Last year, California was staggered by record-breaking fires. “If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised that America will catch on fire even more?”
Mr. Biden won the election, of course – only to see the damage from wildfires in California and across the country continue to get worse.
On Monday, Mr. Biden flew caldor feverConsuming more than 200,000 acres south of Lake Tahoe, forcing thousands of people out of their homes.
“We have to move faster, harder and wider than today,” Mr. Biden told a small crowd gathered at the California Governor’s Emergency Service Office. “We can’t let anything slide any further. It’s really a matter of what the world is going to look like.”
Over the past decade, the number of fires in California has remained stable each year, ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 per year.
What has changed is their scale.
By 2018, the largest wildfires in the state rarely burned more than 300,000 acres, according to state data. Ranch fire destroyed in 2018 more than 400,000 acresand last year, the August Complex fire exceeded 1 million acres and the biggest flame in the history of the state.
Just north of the Caldor fire is the Dixie fire, which has already burned more than 960,000 acres and is not yet contained. This fire could break last year’s record.
“The fire situation in California is beyond recognition compared to a decade ago,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University. He said that with the exception of 2019, each of the last five years has brought more devastating fires than the previous year.
The wildfire crisis in California has often turned into a political fight. Last summer, President Trump blamed California for the fire problem and initially denied federal disaster relief
Mr Trump: “You have to clear your floors, you have to clear your forests” he said thenin comments that highlight only one aspect of a complex question. “There are years of leaves and broken trees, and they seem so flammable.”
Mr Trump also denied the link between wildfires and global warming. When state officials urged him not to ignore the science of climate change, which shows that higher temperatures and drought are making fires more devastating, Mr. Trump is wrong. replied“I don’t think science really knows.”
Experts say Mr Trump was wrong to ignore the role of climate change in fueling fires, but he was right that more aggressive forest management is vital to addressing these fires. However, Dr. Most of that work should come from the federal government, which owns about half of California’s land, Wara said.
Dr. Biden’s first budget request earlier this year did not ask for enough money from Congress to reduce the amount of combustible vegetation in the nation’s forests, Wara said. The $1 trillion bilateral infrastructure bill currently pending on Capitol Hill will significantly increase this funding.
Dr. “It is not possible to solve the forest fire problem without dealing with how forests are managed,” Wara said.
The Biden administration has taken other steps to reduce damage from the fires, including increasing the number of air tankers and helicopters at its disposal and raising the wages of federal firefighters to $15 an hour.
“We owe them so much more,” Mr Biden told California emergency workers on Monday, before directing the “happy birthday” comment to an employee.
FEMA has also provided more money to help communities prepare for fires in advance, for example by building fire breaks or retrofitting homes. And after a fire, the agency made it easy for fire victims who lost proof of home ownership (documents often destroyed in a fire) to apply for help rebuilding that home.
And Mr. Biden has asked Congress to approve measures to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. But even if these changes become law, the amount of carbon dioxide and other warming gases released into the atmosphere means the planet will continue to warm for years to come.
According to Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire policy expert at Headwaters Economics, a Montana advisory group, most of the actions that will go the farthest to reduce wildfire risk are beyond the scope of federal authority.
Protecting Americans from fires means reducing home construction in fire-prone areas – decisions historically made at the state and local level, he said.
Dr. “We develop and build homes in places that are highly prone to bushfires,” Barrett said. He said communities need to factor fire risk into their growth patterns, just as with flooding and ever-increasing sea level rise.
Still, Michele Steinberg, director of the wildfire division of the National Fire Protection Association, said Mr Biden could use the presidential megaphone to encourage state and local officials to be more thoughtful about where and how they’re building.
“Guys, there’s this thing called building codes and land use regulations, and they’re really good and really work when they’re implemented,” said Ms. Steinberg, a message Mr. Biden could convey. “It would be a big step in the right direction.”
But even if Mr. Biden wanted to send that message, he would be competing against the deep American notion that land is something for profit rather than conservation or preservation, he said.
Ms. Steinberg said, “More, let’s take the value of this land that we can do now and let the next generation worry.”
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