Sharjah24 – AFP: Some asked to hug, others got hugged without asking and one man, wearing the only clothes he had left, just clasped hands with Joe Biden as the US president made an emotional tour Friday of a devastating Colorado wildfire.
Surrounded by apocalyptic damage from the inferno, Biden sought to comfort locals.
The 79-year-old Democrat has long been famous for his ability to show empathy with the suffering and his powers were on full display as he moved along a line of families and firefighters in Louisville, which burned to cinders in the December 30 Marshall Fire.
Some 1,000 homes were destroyed in the blaze near the state's biggest city Denver, and two people remain missing, authorities said.
Biden later made remarks from a local recreation center, where he said "there's nothing so frightening, in my view," as fire.
"I can't imagine what it's like to be here in this neighborhood and see winds whipping up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour and see flames approaching," he said.
Referring to huge wildfires around the country in an age of climate change, Biden said "more land has burned in the United States than make up the entire, in terms of total acreage, as the entire state of New Jersey."
"The situation is a blinking code red for our nation," he added, referring to unusually high winds and the late arrival of snow as responsible for creating "a tinder box."
"We can't ignore the reality that these fires are being supercharged, they're being supercharged" by climate change.
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