Shortages added fuel to O.C. fire

[donsu]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-resources28oct28,0,3476973.story?coll=la-home-center


Substandard staffing, grounded aircraft and fewer reserve crews delayed efforts to quash the Santiago blaze.


Before the Santiago fire started in the hills northeast of Irvine, the Orange County fire department already had been hobbled.

Its fire engines were staffed below national standards, it had fewer firefighters per capita than neighboring counties, and its army of men and women ready to fight the blaze may have been weakened by changes in the county's volunteer firefighter program.

Making matters worse, local crews and equipment had been sent to the Malibu fire, as had reinforcements from the state. Aircraft remained grounded because of the wind and bureaucratic obstacles.

-snip-

As a result, the blaze that began last Sunday punched through the county's defenses, destroying at least 16 homes, threatening more than 3,000 and forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate.

Orange County's problems with the Santiago fire illustrate a recurrent pattern in much of Southern California -- county fire departments that find themselves ill-equipped to handle a major blaze.
-snip-
-----------------------------


how can this be! how can fire departments in known 'fire' country not have super ready, super supplied departments?

[madokie]

1. IRAQ

[EFerrari]

3. And Bush. He's been cutting funding to first responders for years.

[madokie]

4. oh yeah so true

I was just summing it up with one word

thats the plan, to drown it in a bathtub. Break us as a country and then they'll be no money for any social programs, reason enough right there to round the whole lot of them up, throw 'em in a cage and throw away the damn key

[villager]

2. don't most of Orange County's voters believe in little or no government, anyway?

n/t

[madokie]

5. is there that many repukes there?

[Bobbieo]

6. Yeah that's what i hear!

[Romulox]

7. I read back in 2004 that fire fighters are so poorly paid out west

that a significant percentage are illegal immigrants.

Here's a more recent article on the subject:

With Illegal Immigrants Fighting Wildfires, West Faces a Dilemma

As many as half of the roughly 5,000 private firefighters based in the Pacific Northwest and contracted by state and federal governments to fight forest fires are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. And an untold number of them are working here illegally.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/us/28fire.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/J/Johnson,%20Kirk

[kestrel91316]

8. CA fire depts were supposed to get hundreds of

additional fire trucks according to some state law or ballot initiative a few years ago. Apparently Ahnuld has dropped the ball and less than 20% of them have actually been provided.

Just another Republican politician trying to monkeywrench government, as far as I'm concerned.

Found this piece about it:
http://toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.com/2007/10/shortage-of-fire-trucks.html
".....A special panel appointed by Schwarzenegger recommended in 2004 that California buy 150 more firetrucks for emergencies. So far only 19 have been ordered. They are scheduled to arrive in time for next year's fire season...."