Office of the Mayor
City of Santa Rosa
100 Santa Rosa Avenue, Room 10
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
December 12, 2022
President Joseph Biden Jr.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Biden:
On behalf of the City of Santa Rosa, I am writing to request your signature on S. 3092 FEMA Improvement, Reform and Efficiency Act of 2022, also known as the FIRE Act. The FIRE Act is authored by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla and co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. The City of Santa Rosa strongly supports this piece of legislation, which will update the Stafford Act to meet the future recovery needs of communities impacted by wildfires.
Since the aftermath of the Tubbs fire in 2017, Santa Rosa has been working closely with FEMA to rebuild a more resilient community. The City has had to overcome federal regulations and policies that have added significant time and expense to our recovery and rebuilding process.
Over the past five years, the City, working with our Congressional Delegation, has been leading the effort to reform federal recovery policies to meet the needs of fire-impacted communities.
Candidly, while it’s too late for the amendments in this bill to help our city, the lessons we learned going through our own rebuild will help countless communities in the future.
After the Tubbs Fire, the City of Santa Rosa requested federal recovery funding to relocate Fire Station 5, which was destroyed during the fire, from a high fire risk area to a safer location. The City was denied federal funding because current federal regulations demand proof that the facility is and will be subject to repetitive heavy damage, primarily applicable to non-fire disasters like flooding. The FIRE Act will require a review of current relocation assistance policies and regulations.
This important legislation will direct FEMA to initiate a process to pre-deploy resources during red flag warnings – periods of high winds and high temperatures, which are the most likely time for catastrophic wildfires to start – just like FEMA already does in advance of hurricane warnings. Further, the legislation will help ensure relocation assistance is accessible for public infrastructure in fire-prone areas. Lastly, the bill requires that FEMA provides consistency when responding to wildfire-specific damage, such as repairing and mitigating contamination from melted infrastructure.
Office of the Mayor
City of Santa Rosa
100 Santa Rosa Avenue, Room 10
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Thank you for your attention to this critical measure.
Regards,
Chris Rogers, Mayor