California needs to reassess how to prevent such a massive, out-of-control wildfire from reoccurring, Rep. Vince Fong told Newsmax on Monday.
Appearing on "National Report," the Republican congressman representing the 20th District north of Los Angeles, said that "he focus right now is that the firefighters get everything that they need" to put these fires out, but "we have to reassess how to prevent this from every happening again."
Fong, who said he is "just heartbroken" at the tragedy occurring in his state, said that "this is something we have to continually improve on. We have to do more and work with urgency ... and we need to put more resources in."
The congressman reiterated that California has "been dealing with wildfires for a very long time. We need more prescribed burns. We need to clear the red tape. A lot of the fire breaks that we put through in my community have been held up through litigation, and we've had to work through that."
Fong stressed that "when I was in the state Legislature working with my colleagues up in northern California, we were trying to get exemptions to do more prescribed burns, remove the brush from along the roadways. ... There's so much that has to be done, because we have over 120-140 million dead and dying trees in our forests that are fuels."
He continued that "we have a lot more dry conditions and fuels that we have to remove," pointing out that "the entire state of California is now a wildfire area."
Fong emphasized that "we have to do more to take care of Los Angeles, but [also] to deal with the entire state, because what's the next community that's going to be effected by wildfire. This is something that we are going to have to deal with in a significant way."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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