PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown appeared on “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan Sunday morning and said these wildfires are a “wake-up call for all of us that we have got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change.”
Brown provided some historical context about the fires currently raging throughout the state.
“Just to give your viewers a perspective about what’s happening on the ground, about every year for the last 10 years, we burn about 500,000 acres,” the governor said. “This year, this week alone, we’ve burned over a million acres of beautiful Oregon. We’ve got fires on the coast. We’ve got fires in communities right up abutting our metropolitan areas and southern Oregon has been devastated.”
She talked about battling these historic wildfires during a pandemic and said there haven’t been any COVID outbreaks among the ranks of the firefighters.
“The good news is so far we’ve seen no incidences of COVID. They’ve had to basically recreate our entire firefighting systems and they’ve done a phenomenal job. And doing that while working extremely hard, taking heroic efforts to save the lives of Oregonians across the state.”
Brown also said the fires are a result of “decades of mismanagement of our forests in this country, and it is the failure to tackle climate change. We need to do both. And we can.”