Sens. Alex Padilla, Cory Booker tour Eaton Fire aftermath

ALTADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- California U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker Friday morning surveyed the damage left behind by the Eaton Fire during a status check of cleanup and recovery efforts in Altadena.

"This truly is a national disaster that requires a national response," Padilla said after touring three different locations in the Eaton Fire burn zone. "If you take the Altadena Fire, the Palisades Fire, all the fire incidents from January and put them together, we're talking about a geographic area about four times the size of Manhattan."

Joining the senators were representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration.

Despite more than 16,000 structures destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires, officials say the first two stages of the recovery process - removing hazardous waste and clearing properties - is well ahead of schedule.

"We looked at as many as 18 months to remove the debris," said Bob Fenton, regional administrator for FEMA. "We're probably underneath a year, and I'm pushing him to go even faster than that."

But disaster relief funding is still up in the air. Congress recently passed a spending package to keep the government open for the rest of the fiscal year, but the senators say it did not include funding for the ongoing recovery efforts.

With natural disasters striking across the U.S. these days, the two Democrats say they don't expect resistance from Republicans when it comes to getting that funding.

"People who seem to buy into this idea of a divided government, there are a lot of Republicans senators that are just as committed to making sure that these funding demands are met," Booker said.

Meantime, the senators were urging fire victims to apply for federal disaster assistance. The deadline to file for FEMA and SBA aid is March 31.