Biden calls Colorado’s wildfire ‘code red’ climate warning
LOUISVILLE: US President Joe Biden, visiting the scene of Colorado’s most destructive wildfire on record, said on Friday the rare winter blaze marked the latest “code red” reminder of an ominously changing climate he hopes to confront with his renewable energy agenda.
“We can’t ignore the reality that these fires are being supercharged” by global warming, Biden said after touring a neighbourhood in the Denver-area town of Louisville reduced to ruins by last week’s devastating Marshall Fire.
Two people were missing and feared dead after the winddriven, prairie-grass fire incinerated more than 1,000 dwellings on Decemeber 30-31, making it the most destructive Colorado blaze on record in terms of property losses.
Biden’s trip to Boulder County marked his second as president to Colorado and his second focused on wildfires.
Under bright sunny skies, the president and first lady Jill Biden walked through a flame-ravaged Louisville neighbourhood where blackened rubble and scorched tree trunks poked through a blanket of snow.
Addressing first-responders and members of the community at a nearby recreation centre later, Biden said he was as moved by the scope of devastation he saw.
He noted the blaze was the latest in a string of highly destructive wildfires in Colorado and elsewhere in the West that experts say are symptomatic of extreme drought and rising temperatures associated with climate change.
“The situation is a blinking code red for our nation,” he Biden said. He used the occasion to make a pitch for his chief legislative initiative, the Build Back Better Act, which would funnel billions of dollars to enhanced forest management, firefighting and efforts to reduce carbon emissions.