The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020

The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020

Rick Worthington
Rick Worthington
The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020

The wildfires burning in Oregon and California are like nothing either state has ever seen.

The American Farm Bureau Federation and 13 state Farm Bureaus recently penned a letter urging lawmakers to support the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020.

Ryan Yates with the Farm Bureau says the legislation would provide managers of federal wildlands more resources to fight and prevent wildfires.

“The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act represents a great bipartisan step forward in an attempt to give federal land managers additional tools that help them better manage our federal forests, especially out west. And when it comes to looking at a fire season like we are having in 2020, it really identifies the need for continued active management on our federal lands.”

Yates says the 2020 fire season demonstrates the need for this legislation.

“It is a natural part of the ecosystem, but what we’re seeing today is certainly far from natural, and we need to actively manage these lands to ensure that when wildland fire does happen, that it happens in a way that it doesn’t explode into a massive wildland fire.”

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