December 9, 2020 3:20 a.m.

Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and a group of colleagues, have sent a letter to House and Senate leadership requesting that funds for wildfire risk mitigation and recovery efforts be included in the next COVID-19 relief package.

Wyden said “Entire communities in Oregon and across the West were leveled to ash in the wake of this year’s wildfire season – lives lost and homes and small businesses destroyed, and all on top of a life-threatening global pandemic”. He said with the blow that 2020 delivered to those communities, Congress has a responsibility to provide for their recovery and invest in preventing future devastation.

Merkley said in September, he drove over 600 miles across the state to meet with Oregonians who suffered tremendous loss and to get an up-close look at the damage from this year’s unprecedented wildfires. He said what he saw and heard “…was heartbreaking”- reports of lives lost, homes destroyed and entire towns leveled. Merkley said he is going to keep doing everything he can to help communities get back on their feet and “…reduce the risk of this type of massive destruction from ever happening again”.

Get more specifics by reading the letter, linked with this story at www.541radio.com: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/120820%20Neguse%20Wyden%20Wildfire%20COVID%20Stimulus%20Letter.pdf