Ahh yeah, the billionaires are on it again telling everyone how specific persons did everything wrong and how they knew better. But instead of helping with their billions BEFORE something happens, they will just act as the saviors after it happened.

Elon Musk and guys like him could buy a hundred fire fighting planes, park them somewhere (and maintain them) and give them for free to any state which need them right now. They could also pay for the teams.

But no, they won't do shit, will only complain about taxes and avoid to pay any on their own and then complain that states and cities don't have enough of anything. Maybe, just maybe your country with such an enormous amount of wealthy people could fight fire, poverty, criminality and all of that much better If your thousands of billionaires and multi millionaires who complain about all of that would try to really help and don't just stir everyone up.

Imagine just the amount of super rich in Los Angeles. All of them know about the situation of a potential fire. I mean, it happens again and again but instead of helping to avoid this stuff they are the first you see on TV to tell you how they've lost one of their 20 homes

These extreme wild fires are the fault of Donald Trump and the rest of the republican party, who have done everything they could to accelerate climate change whenever they had power.

A 2% cut or $17 million is a big cut to an entire agency.

Keep in mind that if you kept budgets static, inflation means it was a budget cut anyway... So the cut is likely bigger than $17 million/2% in real terms.

The more modern our trucks are, the more likely they are to "break" as they are full of advanced safety safety features, which means we need larger budgets to service them, that tends to be where the bulk of our funding goes... Onto the trucks.

If that larger budget was already being stretched, cuts won't make that easier.
So that 2% is more impactful than people realize. - It may mean we defer replacing a hose with a hole in it until the next financial year, it may mean we don't buy a new floating collar dam to provide water at the fire-ground... It may mean we skip a pump service.

It does mean a lot.

Just a quick fact check, the actual budget of the fire department did not decrease 2%, but instead increased 7%. Basically, the initial budget was 2% lower, however there were several additional funding sources which were approved later or through different avenues than the standard budget ($53 million for pay increases and $58 million for new trucks and additional equipment purchases). Once these purchases are included in the total, we see an increase in budget, not a decrease. There is also another $27 million for patient transportation which is expected to be approved which would increase the budget up to 9% over the past year. 

Did L.A.'s mayor cut the fire department budget? The answer gets tricky - Los Angeles Times

Canada fights California wildfires despite Trump threats

Canada and Mexico have stepped up to aid in combating the flames threatening Los Angeles. This co-operation comes against a backdrop of heightened political tensions, particularly with the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's approach, which includes discussions of tariffs and potential "takeovers."

That's what allies do instead of threatening each other.

‘I think things are going to be really bad.’ The U.S. military debates possible deployment on U.S. soil under Trump

For those who think Trunp is “just kidding.” the military doesn’t think so. Remember, Trump wanted to have U.S. soldiers open up with live ammo protesters to his performative Christian stunt in Washington DC June 2020. General Matk Milley and DefSec Matk Esper had to talk him down to that one. I don’t think Hegseth will show that kind of restraint. Some of the personnel quoted here are people who were deployed by H.W. during the L.A. riots. 

Thanks for that. Good to know.

Keep forgetting that fire departments in the USA have an Ambulance rolled into their fleet as well which adds to capability and costs, we keep our firefighters as firefighting/technical rescue specialists only and Ambulance crews as medical professionals in separate stations and organizations, allows for a higher degree of specialization in their respective fields.

..With the exception of ESO's like myself which can do it all.

But if we read that article there were some staffing cuts which hampered things like "test radio equipment, complete pilot training and carry out brush clearance inspections" - Which are all crucial elements to fire mitigation and management.
Personally brush clearance inspections should be a council issue, which relegates to your national parks/wildland fire service once they get approved permits and plans to do backburns and hazard reductions, urban firefighters don't really have the time to be doing that.

And also in that article they state they had to "scale back operations" but fail to go into any specifics.

I am hoping what happens at the end of this is that a review is performed and a blank check is given to overhaul the entire fire service in that region, but these things tend to go into a decade cycle of boom-bust, where after an incident we get overwhelming support, then it starts to taper off until the next big incident that happens in 5-10 years time.

New fire erupts in Ventura County as powerful winds threaten firefighters’ progress

Untold Stories of L.A. Fires: Incarcerated Firefighters, Black Altadena & Octavia Butler's Warning

We continue our coverage of the devastating wildfires in Southern California, which have killed at least 24 people as of Monday. Some 150,000 more have been forced to evacuate their homes and over 40,000 acres have burned up as firefighters struggle to contain the multiple fires still raging in the Los Angeles area.

Journalist and activist Sonali Kolhatkar, who recently returned to her home in Pasadena, describes community mutual aid efforts underway and how they stand in stark contrast to the militarized response from police and National Guard forces who are seemingly more interested in protecting property than helping residents. She warns that predatory real estate actors are also looking to profit from the devastation, particularly in the historically Black neighborhood of Altadena. "The embers haven't even gone cold. The smoke is still rising, and the developers are circling," she says.

We also speak with Leah Stokes, a researcher on climate and energy policy, who says the scale of the Los Angeles wildfires is a result of burning fossil fuels and destabilizing the planet's equilibrium. "The ultimate driver here is climate change," says Stokes. She says that as people begin to consider rebuilding their communities, they should think about how to build more resilient homes or whether the risk is simply too great in some areas. "Are these places where people really want to be building back at that same density, with that same risk?" she asks. "We do have to be asking tough questions because of the climate crisis, because we have not stopped burning fossil fuels, about where it is safer and less safe to be building back."


It's getting drier and drier here in summer as well (Southern Ontario) and winds keep picking up. I don't remember it being this windy all the time. I guess Doug ford's solution is to cut more trees (build more homes) lol. But despite metal roofs gaining in popularity, houses are tinder boxes here as well. Wood frames going up everywhere.

Bit of a contradiction, offset carbon by planting more trees, which provide more fuel to the fires causing and caused by climate change.

It's not a contradiction.
It would not have been an issue to begin with if we didn't dump billions of tonne's worth of CO2 in the atmosphere while cutting down entire forests that offsets carbon.

And not all Tree's add to fire risk, some species of Trees actually do the opposite as they have thick bark with high levels of salt or water content in their foliage which can actually reduce fire risk and ember attacks.

The issue is... Again. California allowed Australian flora to proliferate in that region, which had evolved to spread fire to germinate their seeds.