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Remarks: Joe Biden Receives a Briefing on West Coast Wildfires in Boise - September 13, 2021
StressLens
1 Topic
Entities
Moderation
4 Speakers
Joe Biden Full Transcript
Grant Beebe
00:00:25-00:00:39 (14 sec)No StressLens
I'm Grant Beebe. I'm the Bureau of Land Management's Assistant Director for Fire and Aviation. And speaking for all the NIFC partners, I'd like to thank you particularly for being here and for your genuine and intense interest in wildland fire management.
Grant Beebe
00:00:39-00:00:57 (17 sec)No StressLens
I just want to point out: This is a coalition of partners. We have a team here. We have National Park Service, DOD, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Association of State Foresters representing the states, FEMA, U.S. Fire Administration, and, of course, U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service.
Grant Beebe
00:01:12-00:01:28 (16 sec)No StressLens
NIFC was created 50 years ago, and it is the original and durable model for interagency, intergovernmental coordination. Extremely lengthy, intense, and damaging fire seasons like the one we're experiencing now reinforce the purpose of places like this.
Grant Beebe
00:01:28-00:01:45 (17 sec)No StressLens
Through the hard work, ingenuity, and persistence of generations of fire professionals, wildfire response across the nation is unified, cooperative, and professional. And I'll say that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. We inherited this place, and we're trying to keep it going.
Grant Beebe
00:01:45-00:01:59 (14 sec)No StressLens
In wildland fire, there's no one community, agency, Tribal organization that has enough resources to manage all of its fires. Fires don't know jurisdictional boundaries, and we try to ignore jurisdictional boundaries ourselves. One of our speakers will speak to that particularly.
Grant Beebe
00:01:59-00:02:16 (17 sec)No StressLens
But the kind of fires we're experiencing these days -- the kind of long-duration, massive, destructive fires we've witnessed in recent years in places like California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and, unfortunately, for Governor Otter [sic] this year, in Idaho -- they're teaching us that we need to maybe change the way we're doing business.
Grant Beebe
00:02:16-00:02:35 (19 sec)No StressLens
At NIFC and at innumerable regional and local fire coordination centers, the nation's wildland fire managers join forces, and we direct local, state, Tribal, federal firefighting resources to protect lives and livelihoods, property, infrastructure, and vulnerable natural resources.
Grant Beebe
00:02:35-00:02:59 (24 sec)No StressLens
Ultimately, we all count on help from our partners when crisis strikes. In years like this, it takes the entire national wildland fire response apparatus -- from local, rural fire departments; Rangeland Fire Protection Associations; professional state, county, federal firefighters; military partners -- thank goodness for our military partners this year; international assistance -- to manage fires across our landscape.
Grant Beebe
00:02:59-00:03:17 (18 sec)No StressLens
I'll say people of my age tend to measure fire history in terms of fire seasons, and many of us who are a little longer in the tooth think about the Yellowstone fires of 1988, of course, and what a calamitous fire season that was and we were sure that was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
Grant Beebe
00:03:24-00:03:38 (14 sec)No StressLens
California is setting records for the largest fires in history. Colorado set and then reset records for largest fires in history. So, we're entering into a different environment in fire, and we're starting to think about how we need to change our tactics. And we'll talk about that a little bit more.
Grant Beebe
00:03:38-00:03:54 (16 sec)No StressLens
So, I'll say, finally, that another complex, costly, and critical wildland fire year underscores the nation's need to recommit resources to fire prevention, preparedness, and response. And, frankly, we're honored that you're here and that you have made that measure one of your own.
Brad Little
00:04:00-00:04:17 (18 sec)No StressLens
Mr. President, thank you for being here. Grant really put his arms around the all-hands-on-deck in this facility. And all these people that work here is -- are a result of years of seeing what didn't work in collaboration and what does. And they just get better at it every year.
Brad Little
00:04:25-00:04:40 (15 sec)No StressLens
One of them: Thank you for asking these men and women in our firefighting to get on the fires early, given the incredible drought that we have in the West, so that we didn't have those fires we needed to worry about, along with the ones we had going.
Brad Little
00:05:24-00:05:50 (26 sec)No StressLens
If you can help us do that, to where we can continue to get these fully agreed-upon plans implemented so that we are not endangering these firefighters when we put them out there because we've got forests or -- or even rangeland conditions where the fuels are just almost impossible to fight, it would be very appreciated. And all the Western governors stand ready to work with you and your administration on it.
Joe Biden
00:05:58-00:06:23 (25 sec)Weak (1.175)
I -- folks, you know -- the press has heard me say this before in a different context -- but my colleagues used to always kid me when I was in the Senate; I'm always quoting Irish poets about -- when I thought it was appropriate. And -- and I think they thought I was doing it because I was Irish, but I did it because they're the best poets. But -- [laughter].
Joe Biden
00:06:23-00:06:43 (20 sec)Weak (1.146)
All kidding aside, there's a line from a famous poem. And I think -- I didn't think of it, Grant, until you just were speaking. And it goes like this: It says, "All is changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born." "A Terrible beauty has been born."
Joe Biden
00:06:43-00:07:16 (32 sec)Weak (1.162)
From the Yellowstone fire to today, all has changed in a drastic, drastic way. I need not tell Robyn, who -- National Weather Service -- it's changed, and it's not going back. It's not going back. And we and Western Governors, we've talked about this. And -- and, you know, there's an expression I say all the firefighters here that God made man and then he made a few firefighters.
Joe Biden
00:07:16-00:07:43 (27 sec)No StressLens
You all are the most incredible people. Now, I'm not being -- it's not hyperbole. I started my career with the firefighters as a 29-year-old kid running for the United States Senate, and we've never left one another. And I see the Hotshots out there. I don't want to do any more mass memorial services of the 19 Hotshots that I did back in Arizona.
Joe Biden
00:07:43-00:08:06 (23 sec)Medium (1.813)
And the only thing that keeps you all safe is one another. Firefighters have as many injuries and lose as many people as police officers do. But the only thing that really matters is if there's enough firefighters -- firefighters protecting firefighters. That's the big deal. That's what it all comes down to.
Joe Biden
00:08:06-00:08:25 (19 sec)Weak (1.297)
And I just want you to know that you have the full support of my government -- my administration, I should say -- and all those who have major roles in the government, from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Interior -- just across the board.
Joe Biden
00:08:25-00:08:46 (21 sec)Weak (1.493)
And so -- and I want to acknowledge Senators Risch and Crapo can't be here. And Senator Wyden and Markley [sic] were going to come -- or, excuse me, Merkley -- were going to come from Oregon. We got a call while in flight: The weather is so bad they can't make it here.
Joe Biden
00:09:16-00:09:58 (42 sec)Medium (1.562)
You know, folks, you know the time of the year when the air fills with smoke and the sky turns a little orange, but that time of year is getting earlier every year. And, you know, last week, the air in Boise was thick with smoke from California and from Oregon. And, you know, this year, as you've pointed out, Grant, you know, 44,000 wildfires; 5.4 million acres burned. That's larger than the entire state of New Jersey.
Joe Biden
00:09:58-00:10:19 (20 sec)No Signal (0.977)
When I say that back East -- they're used to floods and storms. When I say that back East, they -- it's just unfathomable. First of all, they don't fully understand how big the West is, but more acreage is burned than the entire state of New Jersey, which is a big state.
Joe Biden
00:11:01-00:11:22 (21 sec)No Signal (0.993)
But, you know, fires and frequency and ferocity of these fires -- I have -- I'm having a lot of international meetings with our colleagues around the world. They're asking. They're asking. Australia -- really worried. Australia [inaudible] but are trying to figure it out. Canada. I mean, just go around the world.
Joe Biden
00:11:22-00:11:59 (37 sec)No StressLens
And so, folks, look: The fact is that we're in a situation where too many memorials are -- have been held. And I've directed my administration to provide for pay bonuses and incentives to ensure every federal firefighter -- because that's the only authority I have -- makes at least $15 an hour. I mean, they should make a hell of a lot -- heck of a lot more, but at least $15 an hour. And I'm committing to work with Congress to raise the pay gap for federal wildland firefighters.
Joe Biden
00:12:07-00:12:32 (25 sec)Weak (1.471)
And so, you know, believe it or not, there's massive shortage of fire hoses. I think you all get it. But the idea that we went into this fire season with a shortage of fire hoses -- that's all I heard from my guys back East and in the Midwest: no fire hoses.
Joe Biden
00:13:13-00:13:52 (39 sec)No StressLens
We're now have -- we have C-130s for fire suppression, RC-26 aircraft to provide critical fire imagery. And they're based in California. They've flown over 1,000 missions so far -- 250 active-duty troops -- and I've gotten no pushback from the Department of Defense in this at all -- none -- to the Dixie fire in California. And sharing satellite imagery that we have available to us to help monitor growth of fires.
Joe Biden
00:14:05-00:14:39 (34 sec)No StressLens
And -- but one of the things we have to do is we have to build back better than what happened before all this began to come apart. And so, we have a proposal -- and, by the way, both my Republican colleagues in this state and the Democratic colleagues from -- from Oregon, who were going to try to be here, all -- we all support this bill I put together on infrastructure so when we build back, we can build back better than it was before.
Joe Biden
00:14:56-00:15:18 (22 sec)Weak (1.109)
What people back East don't quite get is that, were it not for the fact we made significant investments years ago in everything from the Hoover Dam to a whole range of other things out here, a lot of people south of you wouldn't have any water, and how valuable and serious access to that water is across the board.
Joe Biden
00:16:19-00:16:44 (25 sec)Weak (1.288)
And, you know, we can't continue to try to ignore reality. Barack -- President Obama used to always kid me. I'd say, "You know, reality has a way of working its way in." Well, you know, the reality is we have a global warming problem -- a serious global warming problem, and it's consequential.
Joe Biden
00:16:44-00:17:05 (21 sec)Medium (1.542)
And what's going to happen is, things aren't going to go back to what they were. It's not like you can build back to what it was before. It's not going to get any better than it is today. It only can get worse, not better. It's not like we're going to not have more problems. But we can do this, in my view.
Joe Biden
00:17:18-00:17:58 (40 sec)No StressLens
And I learned a long time ago, Gov, that -- as a U.S. senator back east, that all the major streams and ponds and lakes -- for example, in New York state, they were being polluted, the fish were dying, things were changing. And you know what it was all from? It wasn't because of what they were doing in upstate New York; it's because of smokestacks in Chicago -- steel plants -- because it carries -- the wind carries that pollution at a height that doesn't affect the state of Illinois, or doesn't affect the state of Indiana, doesn't affect -- but it eventually comes down.
Joe Biden
00:17:58-00:18:15 (17 sec)Medium (1.736)
Well, you know, I guess you all -- I know you all know it. You know, you have the smoke from the fires in California on the East Coast, and sometimes it's blocking out the sky. People are not just worried about COVID; they're worried about whether their kids are going to be breathing.
Joe Biden
00:18:15-00:18:49 (34 sec)No Signal (0.962)
And so, every dollar we invest in resilience -- this is part of my message here, and there's a lot more I want to hear from you that you think we should be doing and I think we should be doing as well. But for every dollar we invest in resilience that is building back better, we save six dollars down the road in the future. And, you know, you all know the number. Studies show extreme weather cost America last year $99 billion. Extreme weather.
Joe Biden
00:18:49-00:19:24 (35 sec)No StressLens
It's not just fires. I mean, more people died -- I just went -- I was in Louisiana, Mississippi, and all through the south [inaudible] Hurricane Ida. Well, guess what? More people died in Brooklyn than died in Louisiana. More people. The floodwaters were immense. Never seen anything like it. People were drowning in their homes because there was tornado warnings to go to their basement, and all of a sudden, the flood comes through the windows, up to the ceiling. Can't get out. People dying.
Joe Biden
00:20:19-00:20:45 (26 sec)Medium (1.578)
I grew up in a little town called Claymont, Delaware, and I went to school -- I used to tell Frank Church this -- I got a -- my first job offer, where I wanted -- my wife -- deceased wife and I wanted to move to Idaho because we think -- not a joke -- because it's such a beautiful, beautiful state. And I interviewed for a job with Boise Cascade. And in the meantime, there was a war going on. At any rate --
Joe Biden
00:20:45-00:21:15 (31 sec)Medium (1.65)
But the whole point was that I used to always kid Frank. But I grew up with a little steel town called Claymont, Delaware, when Scranton shut down because of coal mining. And I went to a little Catholic grade school called Holy Rosary. And it was on -- before I-95, there used to be a thing called the "Philadelphia pike." And so, my mom would drive me from -- we only lived about a mile from school, and the school bus wasn't around then -- and drive me to the parking lot.
Joe Biden
00:21:15-00:21:31 (15 sec)Weak (1.208)
And right across the street from the school was a fire station, Claymont Fire -- a volunteer fire company, but they're really good. And so, all the guys who grew up either became cops, firefighters, or priests. I wasn't qualified for any of them, so I'm here. [Laughter]
George Geissler
00:22:44-00:23:19 (36 sec)No StressLens
As Grant said, you know, safe and effective fire management requires the commitment, the cooperation, and the coordination of all of us, all of our partners. State forestry agencies -- such as my own Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Florida Forest Service, and California's Cal Fire -- are the primary agencies that are responsible for wildland fire suppression in our states, and we're partners here at the National Interagency Fire Center with a fire director who sits on NMAC and helps to decide each day the priorities that occur in this nation.
George Geissler
00:23:19-00:23:36 (16 sec)No StressLens
Federal, state, Tribal, and local agencies all benefit from this collaborative effort that helps move national air and ground resources to the areas of greatest threat, while still ensuring all agencies are supported in the firefighting effort.
George Geissler
00:23:36-00:23:58 (22 sec)No StressLens
Within the cooperative structure of the cohesive strategy, and then formalized by our Master Interagency Wildland Fire Management Agreements, states are routinely fighting fire on federal lands alongside the federal agencies, and then they turn around and are helping us on our own fires. Because, as you said, fire knows no boundaries.
George Geissler
00:24:27-00:24:48 (21 sec)No StressLens
So, states contribute, in addition to that, just hundreds of millions of dollars annually to provide wildland firefighting resources -- like, you know, firefighters, engines, heavy equipment, aircraft -- and all of this goes into the national effort, along with our federal partners.
George Geissler
00:24:48-00:25:08 (20 sec)No StressLens
And federal funding, such as State Fire Assistance and Volunteer Fire Assistance that we received through the U.S. Forest Service, actually helps to expand on that capacity as well as maintain it. And all of that is really getting it down to that helping the rural volunteer fire departments that we all know are across the U.S.
George Geissler
00:25:08-00:25:38 (29 sec)No StressLens
The partnership and all of the cooperation between state and local governments, though, it's not just for wildfire suppression, like you said. You know, through Good Neighbor Authority, through shared stewardship, we work together with our local governments, with our Tribal partners, and we do all of the critical fuels mitigation work. We do the forest health treatments that are out there. And we're trying to work, as you said, to improve the resiliency of these landscapes as we go and see the impacts of climate change.
George Geissler
00:25:38-00:26:08 (30 sec)No StressLens
You know, and all of this is really -- provides assistance directly to the communities that we have out there. And as you know, wildfires are impacting entire communities in the United States. These annual occurrences place millions of Americans at risk, and they're no longer limited to just what you see about in the news in the West. They -- we have fires -- it's now a "fire year," and we routinely have fires throughout all 50 states.
George Geissler
00:26:08-00:26:24 (17 sec)No StressLens
But the threat to catastrophic wildfire in America's wildland-urban interface -- it really demands national attention. And it needs to be unified, it needs to be multifaceted, it needs to be -- take on prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery.
George Geissler
00:26:33-00:26:55 (22 sec)No StressLens
So, as chair of the National Association of State Foresters Wildland Committee, I really do appreciate you coming and putting this focus on wildland fire suppression and what we can all do together to address this issue that we're all facing -- be it climate change, landscape resiliency, or threats to our communities. We look forward to working with you.