With extreme heat blanketing the country and wildfires burning across thousands of acres in the West, advocacy groups are petitioning the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to include extreme heat and wildfire smoke as major disasters in the same way they do for hurricanes and other major disasters and emergencies.
The 77-page petition, signed by 31 labor unions, public health organizations and environmental organizations, was sent to FEMA Monday proposing an amendment to the Stafford Act that would add extreme heat and wildfire smoke to the definition of major disasters.
“This simple but elegant amendment serves to unlock critical funds for state, Tribal, and local governments and communities to manage and mitigate extreme heat and wildfire smoke—both natural catastrophes predicted to worsen in duration, frequency, and severity due to the climate emergency,” the petition says.
“Petitioners also request that FEMA amend its regulations to authorize funds to address wildfire smoke as part of the Fire Management Assistance Grant (“FMAG”) program under the Stafford Act,” it adds.
The petition notes that the Stafford Act can be easily amended, as it was just a few years ago to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Seventeen large, un-contained wildfires are currently burning in US states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, all of them in Western states.
Additionally, the US is in the midst of a long-duration heat wave that is expected to break numerous daily high temperature records this week. About 270 million people could see temperatures at or above 90 degrees.
CNN previously reported that extreme heat is far deadlier than other natural disasters, killing on average more than twice as many people each year as hurricanes and tornadoes combined, according to data tracked by the National Weather Service.
Ella Nilsen and Rob Shackelford contributed to this report.
