Environmental News from the US:
When U.S. President Joe Biden visits New Mexico on Saturday to meet victims of the state’s largest ever wildfire, Daniel Encinias hopes to ask him for a new house.
Encinias’ home and hundreds more in northern New Mexico were torched in April after controlled burns by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), meant to reduce wildfire risk, ran out of control.
The resulting Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire has torched around 320,000 acres (129,500 hectares), an area the size of Los Angeles, in mountains northeast of Santa Fe.
It is burning simultaneously with the second-largest blaze in state history which has blackened over 300,000 acres in the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico.
Encinias and his family are among locals invited to Biden’s visit to Santa Fe where he is expected to address USFS mistakes, federal compensation and the West’s climate-driven wildfires.
“I don’t need an apology, I need a home,” said Encinias, 55, standing in the ashes of his house next to burned forest and the recreational vehicle his family of five now calls home.
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Source: Reuters