Comment from Red Oregon

Good morning! They voted for Trump, but they live in a state that did not. In the new disaster-relief system, the second fact appears to cancel out the first. That is the lesson now drifting through the smoke over Oregon. The Rowe Creek Complex has burned across hundreds of thousands of acres in Central and Eastern Oregon. The East Evans Creek Fire has burned nearly 16,000 acres in Jackson County. At the time Oregon requested federal firefighting assistance, both fires had residents under Level 3 “Go Now” evacuation orders. Rowe Creek was then the largest fire in the United States. FEMA denied both requests. This was not a case of Oregon asking Washington to reimburse a county for an overcooked backyard barbecue. East Evans Creek had more than 230 homes under immediate evacuation orders and threatened roads, bridges, radio and cellular towers, utilities, businesses, irrigation systems and agricultural operations. Rowe Creek had more than 400 people under Level 3 evacuation and threatened electrical cooperatives, public-safety communications, and transmission lines. Oregon officials say both fires exceeded the household threshold FEMA historically used when approving Fire Management Assistance Grants, including the higher informal benchmark the agency has apparently adopted in recent years. FEMA approved assistance for three other Oregon fires, the Lower Dry Creek, Akawa Butte and Grasshopper fires, but rejected East Evans Creek and Rowe Creek. The agency reportedly said the two rejected fires did not meet the criteria for a major-disaster declaration. A small problem with that explanation is the 300,000-acre wall of fire standing behind it. A Fire Management Assistance Grant is not supposed to be reserved for the smoking ruins left after a fire completes its transformation into a major disaster. It exists to help states fight fires that threaten to become major disasters. FEMA’s program covers up to 75 percent of eligible firefighting costs and is designed to get a…