Los Angeles Firefighters Begged The City Not To Cut Funding

By Ka (Jessica) Burbank, Drop Site

The Los Angeles Fire Department knew it was severely underfunded long before this fire. “We don’t have enough firefighters and medics, we don’t have enough fire engines, we don’t have enough trucks and ambulances in the field,” Freddy Escobar, an LAFD Captain II told the city during his testimony at a budget hearing on May 1, 2024. “And we don’t have the equipment and staffing that we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year,” added Escobar, who is union president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City (UFLAC).

The captain explained that demand for fire and rescue had doubled while resources dwindled. “The LAFD has fewer firefighters and medics today than we had 15 years ago, but our emergency calls for service has increased by more than 50% during that same time,” testified Escobar.

As of May 2, 2024, 86 emergency vehicles were out of commission in Los Angeles because funds had not been allocated to hire sheet metal workers and mechanics to fix them. This includes: 40 fire engines (which carry water and are used to fight fires), 36 ambulances, and 10 fire trucks (which carry equipment, like ladders and rescue supplies). As Captain Chuong Ho testified during a budget hearing, “It just makes no sense to have million dollar fire trucks and engines taken out of service and sidelined because we don’t have enough mechanics to keep them running.”

As multiple fires engulfed entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles this week, a debate over the Los Angeles Fire Department budget has unfolded on social media. All things told, a larger LAFD budget would have made little if any difference in the enormous scale of the fires – at least four of them at once – which have been driven so far and so quickly by the famous Santa Ana winds. But the ability of the Fire Department to act as first responders, to evacuate and rescue people quickly, has a direct connection to the budget.

“We’re at the breaking point where our firefighters can no longer do more with less,” testified Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley, in a budget hearing at city hall concerning the 2024-25 fiscal year. She made clear the LAFD was struggling: “This service delivery model is no longer sustainable.”