On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Retired CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Mike Lopez praised California’s mutual aid system and said that the recent fires would be tough to combat even with more firefighters, but budget cuts have created an issue with staffing.
Host Kasie Hunt asked, [relevant exchange begins around 5:40] “We are seeing some political conversations already about this. I’m curious about the frontline firefighters’ view of what should be done, as these fires are clearly getting more intense, more dramatic. What do firefighters need? Is it more training? What kind of funds do you need? Is it — I know it’s different to fight a wildfire in the brush than it is to fight it in an urban area. What do you all need from our leaders going forward?”
Lopez answered, “Well, throughout government, in California, and across the country, fire departments are at — they’re trying to retain as many firefighters as they can and trying to hire. But because of budget cuts along those lines, that always creates an issue, across this country, specifically, California. There’s a lot of that. But fire gets put out by firefighters. If you lack firefighters, that is one of the issues that really contributes to this. California has the best mutual aid system in the world, where we can move resources up and down the state. So, the governor did pre-position over 100 fire engines before the first fire started down in southern California. So, we have, in motion, a great system to predetermine and to get our resources available. So, they use CAL FIRE. They use local government. They use federal resources. So, firefighters moved down there.”
He continued, “And the question is, is it always enough or is it enough? And we can send an extra 500 engines down there at the very beginning. But when you have 40-, 50-, 60-mile-an-hour winds come all at once with fires behind it, the firefighters are now into rescue, life safety, and they’re — and trying to extinguish all at once. So, that becomes very difficult.”
Lopez also stated that it’s not really fair to blame anyone for the water issues.
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