Biden takes part in wildfire season response briefing
(Gray News) - President Joe Biden participated in a briefing Tuesday about the ongoing wildfire season response and federal efforts to reduce wildfire risk.
Among those present for the briefing was Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The briefing comes as progress was made over the weekend on wildfires in Southern California, which were fueled by a heat wave at the start of the month.
The largest blaze is the Bridge Fire at 85 square miles, which burned through the Angeles National Forest east of Los Angeles at the start of the week, the Associated Press reported.
As of Tuesday, that fire was 25% contained, CalFire reported.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, 2024 has been an active fire season.
To date this year, 36,920 fires have burned more than 7.3 million acres nationally, though the agency noted, “Given the very high tempo and scale of national fire activity over the past few months, there have been delays in reconciling actual acreage burned with entries into the reporting systems, especially from areas with large fires and dynamic fire activity.”
Copyright 2024 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.