Heat and Smoke Could Qualify as Disasters, FEMA Chief Says

The head of the nation’s disaster response agency appeared open on Thursday to allowing some cases of extreme heat or wildfire smoke to qualify for federal resources as major disasters under the Stafford Act.

Deanne Criswell, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, called a petition for her agency to recognize those events as disasters “really well thought out.”

“The word heat and smoke is not exactly stipulated within the Stafford Act, but it doesn’t prohibit us from providing assistance if something was needed,” Criswell said, adding that her agency evaluates all severe weather events “on a case-by-case basis.”

“As with all events, if it exceeds the capacity of the state and local jurisdiction, and that is the reason for them to ask for assistance from the federal government, we would entertain those requests,” she said at an event hosted by the news site Axios in Washington, D.C.

A push this summer by environmental groups and state attorneys general for FEMA to respond to extreme heat and wildfire smoke as it would a flood or hurricane set off a debate over how federal agencies handle deadly weather events.

The Stafford Act, the nation’s primary disaster response law, doesn’t explicitly list heat or smoke as a “major disaster.” Environmentalists argue the law’s broad language allows FEMA to treat them as such, though the agency has not done so. Legislation introduced in Congress last year that would insert extreme heat into the Stafford Act is pending in committee.

July 22 was the planet’s hottest day on record, breaking a record set the day before, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. In the US, extreme heat kills more people on average each year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined, according to the National Weather Service.