From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov 
 
Transcript for: Wildfires Are Deadlier Than Ever – What Can FEMA do?

Description: In recent decades, much of the nation has witnessed an
increase in the size and severity of wildfires as well as longer
wildfire seasons. At the same time, development occurring in and around
wildland areas has increased, placing more people, businesses, and
infrastructure at risk. Demand for federal resources to respond to,
recover from, and mitigate against these wildfires has increased.

GAO is making six recommendations to DHS and FEMA including providing
more immediate post-wildfire mitigation assistance and establishing a
process to collect and assess ongoing feedback from FMAG recipients

Related GAO Work: GAO-25-106862,  Wildfires: Additional Actions Needed
to Address FEMA Assistance Challenges

Released: December 2024 

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[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie, Director, Homeland Security & Justice ]
A lot of people are losing their lives, and it's not getting any better.

[ SPEAKING: Haley, Senior Analyst, Homeland Security & Justice ]
There's definitely been an increase in catastrophic wildfires in the
last ten years.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
It's destroying more houses, killing more people, and they're becoming
way more expensive.

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Actions Needed to Improve FEMA Wildfire Assistance

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
We did a year and a half long study on wildfire response and recovery.

[ SPEAKING: Haley ]
FEMA is the lead agency when it comes to responding to and recovering
from natural disasters.

[ SPEAKING: Caryn, Assistant Director, Homeland Security & Justice ]
So how is FEMA providing assistance to communities that are at risk or
have already had wildfires?

We did two, in-person site visits in September 2023.  The first one was
to Lahaina on the island of Maui.

[ SPEAKING: Hannah, Senior Analyst, Homeland Security & Justice ]
In Lahaina, it was a very devastating scene. The entire town was
destroyed.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
It's pretty much impossible to really quantify the total physical,
psychological and financial cost of something like this.

[ SPEAKING: Caryn ] 
People know that we're listening, and we heard their story, and we saw
their story, and that that is part of the work that we do.

[ SPEAKING: Hannah ]
Wildfires present unique challenges because typically they destroy
entire structures.

[ SPEAKING: Haley ] 
Housing is a challenge after any disaster, but can be exacerbated in
wildfires.

[ SPEAKING: Caryn ]
Fires leaves behind a lot of hazardous and toxic debris, not just, on
the land, but in the land itself.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
So FEMA has to bring in the Army Corps of Engineers. It's a much more
complicated thing to deal with.

[ SPEAKING: Haley ]
We visited one town that, 80% of the structures in that town had been
destroyed in a 2020 fire.  At this point, maybe a third of the buildings
have been rebuilt, and that's three years after the fire. 

You know, some of the people that we visited and spoke to had never
spoken to someone from the federal government before.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
We looked at 2019 to 2023. Just the federal assistance that's gone to
wildfires is about $3.8 billion.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
But the federal government is going to be providing funding for this for
years and years to rebuild long term infrastructure.

[ SPEAKING: Caryn ] 
There are about 30 federal agencies that at any given time can be
involved in these processes.  And so as disaster survivor or as a, small
municipal, leader, it's really hard to navigate those.

[ SPEAKING: Haley ]
This is an issue that, you know, many folks on the Hill are interested
in, want to solve.

We have a really extensive quality assurance process here at GAO, which
I think is really important to making sure people know that they can
trust our what is in our report and trust our recommendations.

[ SPEAKING: Caryn ]
There is bipartisan, bicameral interest and support for the work that
we're doing.

[ SPEAKING: Chris Currie ]
One of our recommendations has been that they need to look at some of
these things and figure out how to change their policies to address the
unique aspects of fire.  A lot of times, the FEMA help that comes after
a disaster is too slow and overly complicated.

[ SPEAKING: Hannah ]
The recommendations that we're making to FEMA hopefully will help in the
future.

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find out more @ GAO.gov

Footage: GAO
Image Sources: DVIDS, Adobe Stock - toa555, maykal -, FEMA, MALDEN Fire
Department

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For more info, check out our report GAO-25-106862 at: GAO.gov