PORTLAND, Ore. — Governors from western states talked to the president on Wednesday about what’s needed to prevent, prepare for and address wildfires.
In Oregon, the last fire season was unprecedented. Now this year, Oregonians have gone through another unprecedented event with the record-breaking heat.
That’s why Gov. Kate Brown moderated a panel alongside other western governors, telling the president they need help and resources to fight wildfires.
"She was very passionate about making sure that we understood the number of fires, the increasing number of fires, that you have seen and the number of people and structures that have been hit,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who was also at the meeting.
“We are seeing cascading climate-related events whether it is storms or droughts and obviously droughts contribute to wildfires, the heatwaves y'all are experiencing. That is clearly directed to climate change,” Granholm said.
Since 2015, the U.S. has experienced on average roughly 100 more large wildfires than the year before, according to the White House.
“Last year we spent $90 billion as a country in one year just in the wake of these climate-related events,” said Granholm.
At the meeting, the president introduced wildfire-related initiatives, including development of technology to detect wildfires, adding more air resources and firefighters on the ground.
President Biden also wants to pay firefighters more -- at least $15 an hour plus bonuses.
“Last week I learned that some of our federal firefighters are being paid less than $13 an hour. Come on man. That's unacceptable to me. And I immediately directed my team to take decisive action to fix it,” said Biden.
Gov. Kate Brown said the president will have to work with Congress on his plans.
“The good news is we have Sen. Wyden taking the lead on these issues," said Brown. "For example, it was Sen. Wyden that got us the resources so we could train our national guardsmen and women ahead of time so that we don’t send them during fire season to two weeks of training. They’re already trained. So we have several hundred members already ready to help support our firefighting efforts."
"One thing that’s really important for Oregonians and everybody to realize is that the president is in the middle of negotiating this bipartisan infrastructure framework right," Granholm said. "And that framework actually has $50 billion in it to build resilience to wildfires to help western communities prepare for droughts."
For more information on the president’s action plan, click here.