Senate Democrats have asked Senate leadership to fund recovery from wildfires on federal lands.
The senators, including Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, asked that any new emergency disaster appropriations bills include funding resources to help national parks and forests to recover from wildfire. Such lands are not covered by FEMA, leaving the cost to clean up and restore the lands to the federal agencies.
"As you know, unlike wildfire response activities on state, tribal, or private lands which are coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), wildfire response on federal land is managed by the land agencies themselves. In the past, Congress has appropriated the funds our public land agencies require for their critical response, remediation, and mitigation activities," they wrote.
Nearly 1 million acres of Bureau of Land Management terrain burned in the American West this year. In Arizona, the Dragon Bravo and White Sage fires devastated about 200,000 acres of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim and the Kaibab National Forest.
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Highschoolers across six BIE-run schools in South Dakota, Oklahoma, Montana and New Mexico are already participating, including Northwest High School in Shiprock on the Navajo Nation. -
The study found that permafrost can thaw during intense wildfires in Alaska and Canada, which contributes to a warming climate feedback loop. -
The team, led by a Boise State University civil engineering researcher, looked at half a million wildfire starts, and hundreds of attributes about them. Beyond the obvious weather variables like wind speed, temperature and humidity, they also considered human factors like density of development. -
The 11 senators and representatives - all Democrats - said that the consolidation of four Department of Interior agencies' wildfire programs is being done "without adequate analysis, transparency, or planning to prevent disruption during what is expected to be a significant fire season or to safeguard long-term wildfire preparedness." -
Hikers and bikers who use Dove Valley Trail in Scottsdale may want to consider other options while the city does some work to reduce wildfire risk and improve emergency access.
