October 26, 2022 3:20 a.m.

On Tuesday, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced that the Oregon Department of Transportation will receive more than $43 million in additional recovery funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for continued hazard tree and debris removal after the 2020 fire disasters.

Wyden said, “Recovery efforts from the catastrophic 2020 fire season have been steady, but too many small communities have carried the challenging and expensive burden of taking immediate action to clean up and clear roads after the fires were out”.

Merkley said “Oregon’s devastating 2020 wildfire season took a heavy emotional and financial toll on many of our small communities and we need to do everything we can to help them recover and rebuild”.

A release said the FEMA dollars come in addition to the more than $218 million in federal reimbursement for hazard tree and debris removal in Lane, Jackson and Marion counties. That follows an increased FEMA cost share formula for all major emergency and disaster events, such as the 2020 fire events in those counties.