—The fire hydrants don’t work.
—The water supply just went down.
The radio messages from firefighters Fighting without water on the front lines of the worst fire in Los Angeles history are just a sample of the many shortfalls emergency services face.
The fire has highlighted the failures of a system in which 65% of firefighters nationwide are volunteers (this is not the case in Los Angeles, although it has acknowledged that it suffers from a deficit in the number of firefighters to address the current crisis). Additionally, the city’s Fire Department has recently suffered personnel cuts. Just a few weeks before the fire, the firefighters had sent a letter to the mayor warning of the serious operational consequences of said cuts.
At three in the morning on Wednesday, all the water tanks in the Palisades area, one of the most affected by the flames, had been exhausted, as reported by Janisse Quiñonesdirector of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. In addition, the shortage and high demand considerably reduced the pressure, which prevented the water from rising through the pipes to the top of the hill where the flames still spread uncontrollably. According to the city’s mayor, 20% of the fire hydrants were left without water due to an unprecedented demand that prevented the replenishment of the tanks.
In this sense, Quiñones has asked citizens to reduce water consumption “because the Fire Department needs it to fight fires.” “We are fighting a forest fire with urban water systems and that is very complicated.”
“We have to examine our system for climate resilience as a region, and it’s going to be more than just [nosotros]they are all the water agencies here,” said Quiñones.
Volunteers, prisoners and cuts
The water shortage is compounded by a lack of labor. “There are not enough firefighters in all of Los Angeles County to tackle fires of this magnitude,” county Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said directly. “The department was prepared for one or two big fires, but not four,” he added.
The reality is that the fire service throughout the United States depends on volunteers. Of the 1,041,200 firefighters in the country, 676,900 are volunteers, which represents 65% of the total. Only 14.7% of all fire departments in the country are made up entirely or mostly of professional firefighters. 69.8% is made up exclusively of volunteers.
In the case of California, the state in which the city of Los Angeles is located, 54.5% of fire departments are made up of entirely (28.7%) or majority (25.8%) volunteers. 29.8%, however, is made up exclusively of career professional firefighters. The Los Angeles Fire Department has confirmed to elDiario.es that it does not use volunteers. According to Marrone’s data, in total there are around 9,000 firefighters between the city’s Fire Department and 29 other agencies.
Additionally, California has a program to use prisoners to work on wildfire prevention by, for example, building firebreaks. Depending on the year, inmate fire crews represent up to 30% of the state’s wildland firefighters, who are typically paid between $5.80 and $10.34 per day, earning an additional $1 per hour. when responding to a disaster, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
In June 2024, two Los Angeles council members wrote to the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, expressing concern about the program cutswhich would have considerably reduced the number of inmate firefighters available in the city.
This program has been highly questioned, among other things because of the safety of its participants. According to one information from Time magazine prepared thanks to data obtained through transparency. More than 1,000 inmate firefighters in California had to be treated in the hospital between June 2013 and August 2018. According to this data, they are four times more likely to suffer object-induced injuries, such as cuts, bruises, dislocations and fractures, compared to with professional firefighters who work on the same fires. Inmates were also more than eight times more likely to suffer injuries from smoke and particle inhalation compared to other firefighters.
Just six months ago, the mayor of Los Angeles approved a $12.8 billion budget that cut funding to the Fire Department. However, the situation is more complexbecause months after approving the budgets, the councilor signed a new contract with the Department granting it more funds intended for salary increases and health benefits.
Still, the initial budget cut has meant a notable reduction in the number of work hours and a reduction in key civilian positions, firefighters have reported.
On December 17, just a few weeks before the start of the worst fire in the city’s history, which has already claimed the lives of 10 people, the head of the Fire Department sent a letter to the fire board—which was later referred to the mayor—warning of the risks that such a cut would entail.
“The Fire Department is facing unprecedented operational difficulties due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction in employee hours,” the letter stated.
“The reduction in those hours has severely limited the Department’s ability to prepare, train and respond to large-scale emergencies, including fires,” they stated, while highlighting the “critical need to recover resources to ensure operational availability, safety for firefighters and provide a high-quality public service.”
The budget cuts were made to reduce a deficit that, according to city auditor Kenneth Mejiahas one of its main causes in the compensation that the police must pay. In the first six months of the fiscal year (last six months), the city has spent twice what was budgeted on this type of compensation, with the police as the main source of it – more than 100 million dollars in legal settlements. .
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