Jeff Flake: “Mr. Speaker, I do come from the State of Arizona where we have had 450,000 acres burn already this year. The entire…”

“Mr. Speaker, I do come from the State of Arizona where we have had 450,000 acres burn already this year. The entire West, as mentioned by the gentleman from Colorado, is a tinderbox at this point. We are at level 5, the first time we have reached level 5 this early in the year. Arizona, as mentioned, lost about 600 square miles to fire. We still have a lot of Ponderosa pine forest left. We have the largest stand of Ponderosa pine forest in the country. Many of my colleagues, particularly from the East Coast, were surprised to hear that we had forests in Arizona, let alone that they were burning. We had a horrible fire that was finally contained after 2 weeks, contained fully on Sunday. That fire is contained, but I can tell my colleagues that this season is not done, and this legislation recognizes the need to have firefighters, particularly in a management capacity, come here and to ensure that we have the forces necessary to put out these fires. When the lightning seasons hit, we had some lightning just a couple of days ago, five new fires started quickly, had to be suppressed, and we are going to see a lot more of that this year. So it is very important that we pass this legislation.”