Not sure I need to add much to this:
California’s once-acclaimed mutual aid system among local fire departments, key to fighting the state’s increasing number of massive brush fires, is being undercut by tight budgets, fire officials warned a legislative hearing Wednesday.
Mutual aid response to the Station fire, the largest fire in Los Angeles County history, was down by a third over past Southland brush fires, officials told a session of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management.
“We handled the Station fire because it was the only fire and was . . . not wind-driven,” said Sheldon Gilbert, Alameda County fire chief and president of the California Fire Chiefs Assn. “Heaven forbid if we have two or three fires that are wind-driven,” he said.(LAT 9/24/09)
These are part of the trickle-down cuts. The cuts to the local governments are playing out on local fire departments, resulting in the loss of mutual aid.
It’s all well and dandy that the Republicans run over and over again on public safety. It would just be nice if they bothered to actually do something about it.
Everybody knows public safety means those scary criminals who are out to get you.
Nobody expects to find their house in the line of a raging wildfire. Until they do.
And, because politicians haven’t bothered to make this into a big scary threat, most of us don’t think much about it until the ashes from nearby burns start to fall on the front porch. The media has done an excellent job of repeating the scary criminal part of public safety, but almost nothing to publicize the danger to the public from fire safety cuts. It’s a shame, but true. And I thank you for doing your part to remedy this.