Wildfire smoke: West Coast senators claim East Coast is waking up to US fire problem
Misty Severi
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A group of senators from the West Coast claimed on Thursday that the East Coast’s heavy smoke problems from Canadian wildfires are bringing attention to a problem their states already face.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that fire problems have already raged on the West Coast for decades, but the problems on the East Coast are waking the country up to what her state has already seen.
WILDFIRE SMOKE MAP: TRACK MASSIVE HAZE IN REAL TIME ACROSS THE US
“I think America is waking up, at least on the East Coast, to this problem,” Cantwell said during the committee’s hearing on Thursday. “We certainly have known all about it on the West Coast for some time now.”
The committee’s hearing is on the federal response to the growing threat of wildfires, which included testimony from multiple Western senators. The hearing also evaluated reforms to land management and firefighter recruitment and retention.
The hearing occurred as more than half of the United States is blanketed in heavy smoke, which has put roughly 90 million people under air quality alerts. Among the cities affected are New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Jersey City.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) shared a picture of an August day in downtown Salt Lake City that saw the city covered in a layer of smoke the senator claimed was from fires in California.
“Most Easterners aren’t used to dealing with this level of smoke, and by Easterners, I mean basically anybody to the east of Colorado,” Lee joked. “But this is an unfortunate recurring reality for us in the West. … Western fires usually don’t cause quite the national stir that we’ve seen in the last few days, even though this is something we deal with with some regularity. But they ought to be of concern to all of us because they do happen, and for us, they happen quite frequently.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) told the committee he could not remember a summer in Idaho’s capital that did not have smoke.
“For those of you who live on the East Coast, welcome to our air in the West,” Risch said. “This is common. I don’t remember a summer in Boise when we haven’t had smoke. Sometimes, it’s much worse than others. We’ve had some summers that were really catastrophic in this regard. But this is what we live with, and this is just the way it is.”
The hearing comes on the same day Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, requesting that he double the amount of Forest Service personnel deployed to fight the wildfires in Canada.
“These wildfires are a crisis for both our countries,” Schumer tweeted. “The best way to ensure the U.S. doesn’t suffer another wave of wildfire air pollution is to contain the fires ASAP.”
https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1666819653086371840
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Wildfires have been spreading across Canada over the last six weeks, prompting evacuations and causing more than 3.3 million hectares of land to burn.
The Canadian government announced on Monday that the country is set to experience one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, which has been exacerbated by drought and high temperatures.