Posted on 11/22/2018 7:21:49 AM PST by Kaslin
It’s hard to imagine the real destruction of the California wildfires. Scores of people dead, hundreds missing, thousands of structures destroyed, and hundreds of acres burned to the ground. It’s a tragedy the likes of which our nation has never seen before.
In times like these, those affected by the wildfires need urgent assistance, and that’s exactly what they’re getting from the Trump administration.
The scale of the disaster is hard to overstate. This year marks the state’s worst fire season ever, punctuated by the “Camp” and “Woolsey” fires.
The Camp fire alone has claimed at least 77 lives, out of a total of at least 94 fire-related deaths for the season. That same fire has all but wiped out Paradise, California, a prosperous community of 26,000, and sent the residents of a dozen other towns fleeing for their lives. All told, more than 1.6 million acreshave been set ablaze this year. That’s an area bigger than the entire state of Delaware.
Luckily, our brave firefighters and other first responders appear to have turned the corner in their battle with the blaze. The massive Woolsey brushfire in Southern California is 96 percent contained, while the Camp Fire in the Central Valley is finally 70 percent contained with the end of danger now just barely in sight.
President Trump and his administration have been there for every part of this fight. This past weekend, President Trump visited California to consult with local leaders. He hosted Governor Jerry Brown aboard Air Force One, and toured the devastation with Brown, Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, and U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Also accompanying President Trump was FEMA Administrator Brock Long, who is tasked with implementing the robust federal response to this disaster. Even before the President’s major disaster declaration, FEMA was on the scene helping state and local first responders and providing shelter and other assistance to those driven from their homes. With President Trump’s declaration in effect, FEMA is setting up disaster recovery centers across the wildfire zones for those directly affected.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also visited California no fewer than four times to help coordinate the response to this year’s record-setting fire season. Some of the blazes began or touched on federal lands, and the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Land Management are integral to studying the causes to help prevent these tragedies from recurring in the future.
Wildfires are an inevitable feature of the American West, and the drought conditions this year all but guaranteed that a spark would catch somewhere. This administration recognizes, however, that we must provide better management, prevention, and response in the future.
God willing, we’ve rounded the corner on 2018’s wildfire disasters in California. The people most affected can now begin to mourn their friends, repair their property, and rebuild their lives.
It’s the federal government’s duty to help them through this ordeal and work to ensure that this scale of devastation can never happen again. It’s a duty from which this administration will not shrink.
Will Brown pardon the Fires ?
It’s hard to imagine the real destruction of the California wildfires
...no it isn’t... Since the tree huggers took over forestry service, you can expect this every year...
Why don’t we just pass a law that makes forest fires illegal?
There SHOULD be a massive federal response because California spent all the citizen money on illegals and their children.
Americans being burned alive in their homes because of a fire caused by neglect and ideology? No biggie! They were just gringos anyway! THAT is the position of the so-called “American” government in this state.
And a week from now the enviro-nazis will go back to suing the feds to prevent them from clearing any brush.
Next come rains, then mudslides. Maybe God is trying to tell them something???
That response should be thousands of NG and other military troops, armed with chainsaws, bulldozers, skidders and other logging equipment.
They can use the lumber to build new houses.
(use the smaller sticks to beat the screaming treehuggers)
Just make damned sure that the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats in Mexifornia don’t siphon off the funds to the illegals!
But the routine fires that kill people and destroy property and wildlife are unstoppable ?
The fed ought to respond to the extent it is responsible for damage. So long as the Left is bailed out local voters will not feel a need to vote them out of office. I.e., American taxpayers elsewhere in the nation are financing the Left's growth.
At this point, perhaps the only way, or at least the most economical way to save California is to let it fail under its own weight.
Bingo!
I think they are seen as kulaks who stole the land from the peaceful, agrarian natives and - come the Revolution - they would have had those homes taken away by the State, anyway.
This is a flat out lie. Whether the author lied due to ignorance or malice, I can't say, but it is a lie nevertheless. This nation has seen many terrible tragedies, some caused by nature and some by humans. One example of each -- natural and human-caused: The hurricane in 1900 that wiped out Galveston, TX, and the 2001 terrorist attacks in the states of New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The Endangered Species Act led to all these fires when it ended logging and prudent forest management. The grand irony is that the number of animals killed in these fires is probably a million times higher than the number of animals “saved” by the ESA.
This is SO typical of the federal government. They CAUSE the problem in the first place, then step in to fix the very thing they FUBARed. Looked at from that perspective, self-serving articles like this make me sick.
I agree, but this area is solid red and lower to middle income, it breaks my heart. My wife is a Travelers Director of Operations for Property and she has over 200 people they can’t get a hold of.. Which means two things, they are with family and just can’t a hold of them, or they are dead.
It is heart breaking.
WEas at teh VA in Chico Tuesday and when talking with the nurse, exchanging stories of people’s escapes that we knew...she said they have clients that they haven’t heard from thatn have missed their appointments and are on the missing list. Not Good. There are some 27000 stories of escape for those desperate people of Paradise.
I am afraid to scroll down and read here. The rest of the country has heartbreaking disasters and we all feel for you as if it were us. Please have the same sympathy. I get tears in my eyes seeing the damage which came within feet of two important places in my life. I drive by blackened hills as far as the eye can see on both sides of the road. It’s terrible and still smells so bad. So many people lost homes and up north lives.
Have the same kindness for the individuals in CA that we all do for you. This site and its founder are here too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.