16 Time June 20/June 27, 2022
challenging it becomes to get to the
root of the problem.Neguse, who has lived in Colorado
since he was 6, is the first to admit
wildfires are nothing new for the state.
He recalls hearing about wildfires as
a child, but in his recollection they
didn’t come close to what the state is
experiencing today. Since voters in this
part of the state first elected Neguse
to Congress in 2018, wildfires have
become an increasingly central chal-
lenge. Nine of the 20 largest fires in the
state have taken place since then, and
thousands of people have been dis-
placed. The damage from the Marshall
Fire alone totaled $1 billion. Neguse’s
district, which includes the suburbs
northwest of Denver and stretches all
the way to the state’s northern border,
has been hit particularly hard.
Neguse says this reality has made
addressing wildfires a nonstop job.
“I knew going into my service as a
member of Congress that wildfires
would be something that I would work
on,” he told me. “But I certainly did not
anticipate that it would become the de-
fining issue of my time in Congress.”
Increasingly, frequent and deadly
wildfires are a frightening reality across
much of the U.S. Climate change has
brought warmer temperatures and, in
turn, drier forests, creating ideal condi-
tions to spark a fire. Meanwhile, humans
have built closer and closer to the wilder-
ness where wildfires generally start. The
result is an unpredictable year-round
fire season with annual acreage burned
creeping up dramatically over the past
three decades. More than 10 million
acres burned in 2020, an area more
than twice the size of Connecticut; in
the 1990s the average year saw just over
3 million acres burn. And while Western
states like Colorado may be the hardest-
hit now, scientists expect other places to
follow, particularly in the Southeast.
“I am doing everything I can to ring
the alarm,” Neguse says. “If a fire can ul-
timately tear through and destroy these
suburban communities, it can happen
in New Jersey, it can happen in Georgia,
it could happen in Seattle—and I think
that that’s a paradigm shift.”
An on-the-ground tour definitely
helps him make that case. Save for theDespiTe clear DirecTions from my Gps,
I felt certain I was in the wrong place as I drove
the last mile to meet Colorado Representative Joe
Neguse in March. We were meeting in the city of
Superior at the site of a recent devastating wild-
fire in his district, and yet the subdivisions I sped
past seemed to be buzzing along normally. Shop-
pers drove into a shopping complex while parents
ferried kids to school. But then, in the middle of
idyllic suburbia, it appeared: a 30-acre subdivi-
sion in ruins. Every single home in the neighbor-
hood, once home to nearly 200 houses, burned
to the ground in the Marshall Fire in December.
Now a visitor can see the outlines of where the
homes used to stand and the frame of a burnt-out
car here and there, but not much more remains.
Waiting at the entrance to the Sagamore sub-
division stood Neguse. While I moved plod-
dingly through the wreckage to take it all in,
Neguse, 38, jumped briskly from one spot to an-
other, not quite cheery but not morose either.
For him, touring fire wreckage has become a rit-
ual, following three major fire events that rocked
this part of the state over the past three years.
He’s done variations on the tour more times than
his office can count—with journalists, residents,
and local officials, even with Joe Biden. It’s just
one small indicator of how addressing wildfire
fallout has become, in his words, the “primary
occupation” of his office. “Because there is no
fire season, this wildfire work is year-round,” he
says. “It is every month, every week, every day.”
Neguse, a lawyer by training who previously
oversaw Colorado’s consumer- protection agency,
seems like a good fit for this bleak job. He likes
to dig into details (he spoke for 16 minutes in re-
sponse to one of my questions), and in the district
I watched him dive into the particulars of fed-
eral recovery programs for displaced residents—
from insurance policy to EPA soil-quality rules—
without breaking a sweat. Still, despite his
attention to the details, he says lawmakers need
to pay attention to the bigger picture. “We have
to fundamentally deal with the disease, not just
simply the symptoms,” he says. “The disease is
climate change.”
But there are only so many hours in a day.
And the more time Neguse and other elected of-
ficials need to spend putting out fires, the more
NEGUSE
QUICK FACTSQUICK FACTSMaking history
Neguse, the son
of immigrants from of immigrants from
Eritrea, is the first Eritrea, is the first
Black American to Black American to
represent Colorado represent Colorado
in Congress.in Congress.Prosecuting the
President
Neguse rose
to national to national
prominence serving prominence serving
as a prosecutor in as a prosecutor in
President Donald President Donald
Trump’s second Trump’s second
impeachment trial impeachment trial
after last year’s after last year’s
Jan. 6 insurrection.Jan. 6 insurrection.Lawmaking
Neguse introduced
56 bills in his first 56 bills in his first
term, nine of term, nine of
which became law; which became law;
only one member only one member
of Congress passed of Congress passed
more legislation more legislation
than Neguse than Neguse
that term.that term.Fleet afoot
Neguse is a trail
runner near his runner near his
home in Lafayette, home in Lafayette,
Colo., with his wife Colo., with his wife
Andrea and their Andrea and their
dog Teddy, a pug-dog Teddy, a pug-
Aussie mix.Aussie mix.Joe Neguse didn’t come
to Congress to fight
wildfires. But climate
change had other plans
BY JUSTIN WORLAND/SUPERIOR, COLO.
THE BRIEF TIME WITH