California asks the United States Government for billions in fire aid funds

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, asked the United States Federal Government for $ 40 billion (£ 31.6b) in funds to help reconstruct areas of Los Angeles devastated by the January fires.

Newsom sent the request to Congress leaders in a letter on Friday. He said the funds would help to work on immediate recovery and long term.

“I ask Congress to have the back of the American people and provide disaster funds to help Californians recover and rebuild as soon as possible,” he wrote on social networks.

The fires, which began on January 7, burned 37,469 acres and killed at least 26 people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The funds would be used for the recovery of the workforce, the fiscal incentives, the resilience of forest fires and the reurbing of private property, said Newsom.

According to Newsom’s proposal, most of the funds, 42%, would go to public assistance in debris removal and repair.

“The impacted communities have experienced a generalized devastation and the total impact on California’s economy will have been qualified for years completely,” Newsom wrote in the letter.

Some 150,000 residents have been displaced since the fires broke out in early January.

Much of the communities in the Los Angeles de Los Palisadas del Pacífica and Altadena area were destroyed during the fires days.

The application obtained the support of some legislators representing the area.

“This package will provide an desperately necessary federal aid injection to rebuild community homes, companies and institutions, which will support the healing process for angels that suffer the pain and trauma of losing loved ones, homes and every belonging they appreciated.” Chu, a Democratic congressman, said in a statement.

It is not clear how the application will be received in Congress, where both cameras are controlled by Republicans with close majorities.

Last month, before his visit to Los Angeles, President Donald Trump told Fox News that he did not believe that the federal government should give California “anything” until the water supply changed south of the state.

After his visit to Las Palisades, Trump described destruction as “devastation.”

“I don’t think you can realize how difficult it is, the devastating until you see it,” Trump said. “I mean, I saw many bad things on television, but the reach of it, the size, we fly over that in a helicopter.”