El Dorado County government officials released a five-minute video Tuesday in which residents plead with Biden to grant “individual assistance” to survivors of last summer’s disastrous Caldor Fire, which destroyed 1,003 homes and other buildings and burned through 221,835 acres.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, provided “fire management” funds to reimburse the state for up to 75% of its firefighting costs. But it turned down the county’s request for aid to individuals whose homes or businesses burned. The agency told Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office that while the damage was significant, it wasn’t “of such severity and magnitude to warrant the designation of individual assistance.”
FEMA generally provides individual assistance in major disasters. It dispatched $84 million to help Paradise residents pay their rent, fix their homes and take care of other expenses after the Camp Fire, for instance. FEMA’s decision to deny aid to victims of the 2020 Creek Fire in Fresno and Madera counties caused such an uproar that then-President Donald Trump overruled the agency two days later.
The Caldor Fire destroyed most of the small community of Grizzly Flats, burned down scores of cabins and vacation homes along Highway 50 and prompted the mass evacuation of South Lake Tahoe. A ferocious firefight kept the fire from burning Christmas Valley, a residential area near the lake’s south shore.
The denial of individual aid prompted a petition campaign by county residents to ask the president to overrule FEMA. The state Office of Emergency Services appealed to FEMA, twice, and were turned down both times. Now the county has released a video appeal to Biden that adds the emotional punch of fire survivors speaking about their losses.
“We need the president to keep to his word that he made to the Grizzly Flats residents, and unfortunately to this point that has not happened,” Magdison says in the video.
The video includes news footage of Biden’s visit to the Sacramento area last summer, where he met with Newsom and took a helicopter tour of the Caldor burn zone.
“President Biden came out and said he was going to take care of us and, you know, everything was going to be OK,” Tyler, who lost her home, says in the video.
Rep. Tom McClintock and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla have asked Biden to overturn FEMA’s decision.
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