Curious what everyone’s thoughts are with the lack of engines being staffed? Understanding that it is “Off season”. Totally get that, but there are probably hundreds of fire engines unstaffed on the state side. I can see some politically driven changes to the state budget?
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That would have to start with reclassifying ff1. ( 9mos on, 3 mos off )Moving to traditional staffing is already going to move in that direction( FC,FAE,FFI)
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Yeah for sure. Curious to think with all the engines sitting around.
Well that got shot down by the Governor. Dang
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Great time to resubmit
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This is the type of information that needs to be shared to the media outlets. Failed leadership and lack of support from the Governor, not a surprise. Something the general public should know. 1/3 of the workforce unavailable for “year round fire season.” He doesn’t support us and never will. But people voted for this and this is result. Poor leadership Equals poor results
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Time to reboot. Remove the FFI. and FFII classification and change it a simple "Firefighter’ classification so Firefighters and Firefighter LT so can jump on a local government piece of equipment as well as swap out personnel anytime a on a CF type 3.
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Plenty of Type 3 engines in southern California stay staffed year round, they just rotate out the seasonals and two engine stations change to single engine. Its called Winter preparedness. Unless we get sufficient rain, they don’t close.
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How still doesn’t negate the fact hundred are still unstaffed. Or if the idea of a double house going single. That should be a state wide thing. Especially now. Not sure how many deadly fires it’s going to take for all the engines to be staffed yearly.
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Your point is taken loud and clear…. And no one contests this, but simple math bro, we don’t have enough meat to fill the seats for the 66 hour or in time 56 hour…yet. So waving a magic wand and saying “ I have the solution”, or “ you’re doing it wrong” is not how adults solve problems.
Plan, Organize, Staff, Direct.
Give it time. It will take years and your point will be resolved. But, zip codes will still burn to the ground. Staffing is not the issue. Over 5k Worth of personnel on the Palisades incident. Does that number change the outcome of what the fire did in 24 hours. Absolutely not! I think mathematically if you take CAL FIRE CNR CSR Schedule B component and evaluate it compared to what it was three years ago, there is probably double the amount of engines staffed year round.
There’s over 40 aircraft day flying and night flying assigned to the Palisade. Does that change the outcome of the fire? Yes, when or where Mother Nature allows, probably a degree.
Point I’m getting out as we can have larger aircraft, larger tools, larger staffing, larger response of E-Mac resources, better technology, larger Incident bases, Better mapping, better, communications, but that’s just plug-in. Leaks in the dam. Don’t get me wrong all of those things make for a better defense. But no matter how much how many how big or how fast of XYZ we have, if the fuels don’t get treated, the problem will only increase exponentially faster than our technology or size of tools improves.
To our points, have a read and educate yourself on the Bel Air and Santa Ynez fires of 1961. Twins in performance, relative destruction, and weather influence.LAFD BEL AIR REPORT
Fast forward 65 years, add 100s of more apparatus 10 more aircraft and decades worth of technology and the outcome is absolutely the same. Staffing apparatus year round is not the solution but a great reactionary knee jerk reaction that fixes nothing. Weird how you can highlight the same exact problems they had in 61 as we had, identified and recommended for improvement. Water systems, communications, building, construction, and shockingly fuel treatment!
….” * The underlying causes for the extensive damage resulting from this fire have been long recognized by all fire protection authorities. Continuing efforts have been made to secure legislation to restrict and control building practices that create severe conflagration hazards. The removal of dense brush from lands adjacent to improved properties and the planting of less combustible ground covers is essential. Fire-fighting operations would be greatly enhanced by improvements in accessibility. Water supply problems on high ridges can be mitigated to a considerable extent. Radio communication facilities must be able to accommodate the increased traffic loads that occur in such periods of major emergency. Success in solving these and similar problems will tend to reduce the threat of disastrous fires in such areas as Bel Air and Brentwood.*
I’m not trying to be inflammatory to you or deny your point but just like any SUCCESSFUL sports team, you win by being on offense, not defense. That is all.
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Well said, I would never advocate for less staffing however, we all know more engines would not have changed the outcome by a measurable mark. The amount of money budgeted in California for fire protection combined is significant, more than many US State total budgets. Where we chose to live in the environment has a direct affect on risk to property loss unfortunately and unfortunately, many will use this event to push a political agenda and/or line their pockets as opposed to what actually needs to be done.
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Great report. I would only disagree with 1 point. I think ha create several task forces of engines, type 1’, 3’s or 6’s would be able to do nothing but patrolling the effected area, extinguishing spots created by blowing embers that started from the main fire wound keep them from becoming larger fires. Many small fires became larger fire’s because no resources where available to take on the main fires. Having task forces with the responsibility to do nothing but looking or responding to reports of spots taking off ., might have saved many homes, maybe!
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Maybe, 70 MPH winds though? Not disagreeing, just saying those first several alarms had an impossible task speaking from many years of experience.
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@Kman spot on. It would not have mattered and more suppression is NOT the answer. Just hop on google earth and take a street view through Pacific Palisades or any so cal foothill community. I drove down to Carlsbad on Saturday. Took the backway in from San Marcos down Rancho Sante Fe Rd and all these canyons are in alignment with Santa Ana winds, fuel right up to back yards, ornamental vegetation on private property just right up along the fence lines etc etc. I was on the IMT when we had the Santa Ana wind event there in May of 2014. Nothing has changed and we got lucky on that one. This is duplicated all over so cal. Im not advocating reducing staffing but we have to balance our tax dollars with whats reasonable and effective.
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If increasing staffing prevented one loss of life or loss of a structure then it is worth it. No negating the factual information stated above, but more engines and personnel would have made a positive impact, don’t down play that. Is it the fix, absolutely not but at least it is a step in the right direction.
You don’t climb mount sonuvabitch by sprinting to the top, you do it one step at a time and we as the fire service need to do the same. Great points have been brought up but having a state force ready to mobilize absolutely would have changed the outcome of this event, not drastically but it would have at least been less devastating and that is still a win.
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The 66hr staffing will increase the “winter preparedneea” from 65 engines (30 north, 35 south) to eventually over 200. For the current FY an additional 42 engines have been staffed. NoOps preposition 5 Charlie’s & SoOps 4 Charlie’s. 70-100MHP winds just laughed at the additional staffing.
As has been stated, this has happened many times before. What needs to change? Peoples attitudes about defensible space. These additional year round engines will be doing FUELS WORK. But what happens In the LRA? The Palisades stared in the LRA and moved Into the SRA. The extra engines could only do work pre-fire in the SRA.
Until education is changed, attitudes about defensible space changes, this problem will continue. Most of the spread in the Palisades and Eaton where the structures were destroyed occurred because of ornamental vegetation that had been growing for 20-50yr. How do you legislate trees can only be X feet in size? Staffing isn’t the primary answer to this problem. It starts with education, knowing the history(fire history) and ends with staffing.
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Couldn’t state resources be used on LRA by contract? Like done with crews in some units?
“Politics” would be the major obstacle.
When state workers are doing LRA contract work, it’s in SRA countries under Amador Agreements for off season coverage to augment a local/County Fire dept.
In the case of LA, they are a contract county and have responsibilities for the SRA on all I/A fires.
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How about we just staff engines year round to get people experience, even if it’s just medical aids? Training year round, learning station life year round, fuel management projects, and actually building an experienced workforce. Politics though, it will cost too much money.
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