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Biden consoles Colorado families devastated by fire | Climate News

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Rare winter fires burned thousands of acres around Denver at the end of last month, forcing tens of thousands to flee.

Some asked to be hugged, others were hugged without question, and a man, wearing only his remaining clothes, tied his hands with Joe Biden as the U.S. president made an emotional tour of a devastating fire in the state of Colorado on Friday.

Surrounded by the apocalyptic damage of hell, Biden wanted to calm the natives.

The 79-year-old Democrat has long been known for his ability to show empathy for suffering and his powers were fully exposed when he moved along the lines of Louisville families and firefighters, and he turned to ashes. December 30 Marshall Fire.

“We lost everything,” a man told Biden and his wife, Jill Bid’s first lady.

“I’m not even dressed properly, because that’s all I have,” the man told Biden, gesturing to his long shorts.

“We definitely need help,” said the man’s son, who was also wearing shorts, despite the snow on the neighborhood’s blackened debris.

Biden held his father’s hand for a long time, and after shaking hands with a dozen firefighters, they handed him all the ceremonial coins.

A woman looked at Jill Biden and said, “Can I?” and then he hugged her. Biden wrapped his arms around the others.

Two people remain missing and fear the wind-blown fires, the most devastating in the state’s history, after burning more than 1,000 homes. Human remains believed to have belonged to a missing person were recovered on Wednesday.

In Boulder County, just north of the Denver metropolitan area, it burned more than 6,000 acres (24 square miles) in two hours, authorities said.

The drought, the size of a football field, swallowed up huge chunks of landscape at times, in seconds.

They destroyed entire neighborhoods in Superior and Louisville towns.

In one statement On Thursday, Boulder County officials said the fire caused more than $ 513 million in damage, destroying 1,084 housing structures and damaging another 149 in the entire area.

Biden’s trip to Boulder County, where he will visit a neighborhood in Louisville and meet families displaced by the fire, is the second as president of Colorado and the second focused on fires.

Biden agreed emergency declaration January 1 for Colorado, allowing federal and state authorities to provide federal assistance after the fires.

A day earlier, the president also spoke with Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who said that “every effort will be made to provide immediate assistance to people in affected communities,” in the White House. he said.

They have been displaced neighbors returning to their homes to assess damages.

Rex Hickman, who emptied the field with his wife and son, said he was heartbroken to discover that there was nothing left of their 23-year-old home.

“It simply came to our notice then. You know, if you go into crisis. You think about what you can do, what you can’t do, ”he told The Associated Press this week. “The real pain will sink with time.”

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with a fire victim in a neighborhood destroyed by Marshall Fir on Dec. 30 in Louisville, Colorado. [Saul Loeb/AFP]



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