SANTA FE, New York, June 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. federal government will fund a full response to the wildfires in New Mexico, President Joe Biden said Saturday, speaking from Santa Fe amid anger from survivors of the blaze. federal officials.
“We have a responsibility to help the state recover,” Biden told select officials and emergency officials at an afternoon briefing in the state capital, where he reviewed efforts to fight the state’s largest fire in history.
“I’m announcing today that the federal government is covering 100% of the cost,” Biden said, although he said earlier in the day that he would need congressional approval for some funding.
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“We will be here for you in response and recovery as needed,” Biden said, adding that he had seen an “amazing” amount from the perimeter of the area that burned down during the flight to Santa Fe.
“It looks like a lunar landscape,” he said.
Driven by drought and wind, the fire destroyed hundreds of homes in the mountains northeast of Santa Fe after two USFS-prescribed burns went out of control in April. Read more
Air Force One leaned over the damage of a fire in New Mexico, allowing Biden to see a burned forest and streams of smoke from the sky before landing and congratulating the governor and other elected officials who called for more financial support from the federal government.
Local officials told Biden they did not currently have enough resources to predict the weather or help residents who were affected.
“Our citizens are tired, angry and afraid of the future they face,” said David Dy, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management in New Mexico.
“THIS WAS MADE MAN”
Tens of thousands of residents have evacuated Indo-Spanish farms with twice the level of national poverty, overcoming fragile economies where residents cut firewood and grow hay to survive.
“This is not a natural disaster, this was created by a man from a government structure,” said Ella Arelano, whose family lost hundreds of acres of forest around the village of Holman. “It’s a mess, just a big mess that will take generations to recover.”
With over 320,000 acres (129,500 hectares) of mountains blackened by the fire at Hermits Peak Calf Canyon – an area the size of Los Angeles – communities are preparing for landslides, ash streams and floods in areas where extreme fires have provided forest floors with equal water absorption of asphalt.
To date, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has given more than $ 3 million to more than 900 households. But FEMA’s maximum payments of about $ 40,000 for demolished houses are in some cases not enough to cover the loss of farm equipment that burned down along with homes, which in a house probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
White House officials did not immediately answer questions about whether Biden’s promise of federal support would cover only an emergency response or include compensation for damages.
The fire is burning along with another in southwestern New Mexico, the second-largest in the state’s history, highlighting fears that climate change is exacerbating fires that are engulfing firefighters and threatening to eventually destroy most forests in the southwestern United States.
Investigators found that a USFS-controlled incineration sprang out of bounds on April 6 to start the Hermits Peak fire. The Calf Canyon fire was caused by a burning pile of logs and branches of the USFS on April 19. The two fires merged on April 22.
To prevent the spread of fires, land managers sometimes use controlled burns to reduce small trees, shrubs and other materials that ignite forest fires. Since then, the U.S. Forest Service has called for a temporary cessation of practices across the country while reviewing procedures. [nL2N2XC2KJ]
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Report by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Trevor Hunick in Santa Fe; Writing by Michael Martina; Edited by Aurora Ellis
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