Just give firefighting responsibility to the cops! Then they can show up to your kitchen fire, put it out, shoot your dog, and arrest you for complaining all in one trip!
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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This is incorrect.
the updated budget in November saw a $53 million increase over the previous year once the council took into account the department's unappropriated balance calculation, which provides funds after the budget is approved.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/los-angeles-mayor-karen-bass-pushes-back-criticism/story?id=117512817
"No they didn't, it was only a budget cut until the unions fought them and forced them to hand over more budget' isn't exactly the win you think it is here.
Even worse, despite call numbers increasing over 5x from 1960, the fire program has been completely unable to expand since 1960 and was basically completely at the mercy of people doing brutal amounts of overtime to keep things going... until they lost the ability to pay them overtime too! The fire department is absurdly understaffed and underfunded. Imagine still making the same salary as 65 years ago, while having to do 5x the work!
While the 53 million budget increase the unions managed to grab is a good improvement, along with the ~200 more trainee firefighters it allowed them to hire but aren't yet ready to deploy, it's the definition of too little and too late.
High winds preventing firefighting planes and copters, low water levels since the city has let nestle steal all of it for free, electrical problems to prevent pumps from sending water from afar, and not enough man hours to manage and prevent fire conditions in the first place- as it says in the article you posted, no amount of budget could have prevented this, because there was more to play here than just the budget. But enough people and man hours to properly manage things would have done a lot to limit the scope of the disaster.
Careful. I also said this and my post was removed for misinformation. Looks like musks crew are invading.
Screenshotting this because I don't know how to reliably link comments across instances.
Maybe if they all shoot the fire in the back when it's sleeping?!
Given the history of wildfires in California, someone has anti-survival traits.
They cut ~2% of the budget. Anyone spewing this funding cut bullshit is a partisan hack.
Quit being reactionary.
I suspect they could have doubled the budget and they still wouldn't be able to control those fires.
Still it looks like it's affecting rich people, so something will probably get done about it.
Fires are increasing every year. It's the lady thing that should be cut. It should've been the other way around.
Why do you think it's okay to cut funding to the fire department while keeping the police(gang) force that is notorious for not actually doing anything to help it's citizens?
that’s not what reactionary means
$17.5 million, or around 2 percent of the previous year’s budget of $837 million. It was the second-largest departmental operating cut to come out of the city’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget, which shaved funding from the majority of city departments — but not the police.
the article does say the percentage… and maybe it’s insane to cut their budget at all, given california’s recent fire problems, and they should’ve increased it by about 100%….
so, given the difference between -2% and +100%, and half the city burning down, it’s a pretty big deal.
it's not even remotely close to half of the city burning down. But given the damage estimates are running somewhere around $150 billion, it's bad enough
America: Funding cops to shoot black people, defunding actual helpful social needs since 1864.
From my understanding the water towers had completely ran out of water and pumps couldn't keep up. There's was no issue with volume through the existing water system, there's just no way to contain a fire that big. They should be taking preventative measures such as raking the forest.
Can't tell if this is idiocy or peak satire.
Well done.
Oh it's even better than that. They're referencing a direct quote from trump.
I was aware of that, but thank you for providing context!
I was not. Sounded reasonable except the raking part, from someone who knows fuck all about forest fires or building in fire prone areas.
I have to do other people's jobs. Slap some tin foil on em and throw them in to help.
This is some pure bullshit right here. Never let a tragedy go to waste, gotta get those clicks. No amount of budget would have prepared the city for this. They would have needed literally 10x to contain the fires fast enough.
High winds prevented the use of air based equipment. The same winds drove burning embers for miles into absolutely bone dry foliage.
It's been way to dry here for too long to do any controlled burns, so no way to effectively get rid of the fuel.
The FD could always use more resources, but the extent of this fire has nothing to do with a lack of resources and much more to do with climate change.
Sure but climate change just isn't sexy. "Hey everyone that problem we've been telling everyone about for decades has resulted in the predicted outcome, it's pretty terrible."
So the lesson here is to get more slave labor to fight these fires?
I mean, yes, but also fuck the cops and fund the fire department
You don't understand wildland fire mitigation very much, do you. Every penny helps you troll. And by the way, I have my red card, and a minor in forest fire management.
Glad to hear from an expert on the situation , as someone who is in fire management there is a lot you can explain.
There are so much about this . What general resources that would have been needed to prevent the scale of the fires? If properly resourced how would the response have been significantly different? Of course each fire fighter counts, but what would the scale need to have been to change this event? What should people be focusing on when we demand better?
For example I heard the the first hours and days of the fires air assets could not be deployed because of the 60-80 mile hour winds. that was cited as a significant factor in the initial spread. though the source was just on the news so no idea how creditable
Are there types of air craft designed to fight fires in tropical storm like conditions?
Are fire like this seen coming by the city FD?
How are resources allocated when multiple fires rage?
In your opinion what cities are doing a good job with fire/disaster planning? What cities globally face similar challenges as Los Angles? Are there lessons than can be learned from those places?
To keep it short, it's called mitigation. You "prevent" crazy fires by eliminating fuel sources. But remember, homes are fuel sources as well, often great fuel sources. I will let you do the math.
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Based on my own experience, this is how most cities handle their PD/FD funding, unfortunately. The fire department is just not important.. until it is.
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