BOMBSHELL: Some LA Fire Fighters Don't Even Live in California
All off-duty fighters were called to duty in last week's firestorm, but were they all here?
Last week Los Angeles suffered the firestorm of the century - 90 mph winds combined with drought conditions and record low humidity to destroy most of Pacific Palisades, much of Altadena and various other neighborhoods and structures across Los Angeles county. We don’t even need to talk about the dry fire hydrants at the moment. We’ve all been watching the news.
On Tuesday night, during the initial chaos, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) put out a call for all off-duty fighters to report for duty. If ever there were an all-hands-on-deck situation, it was then.
So, imagine my shock when a trusted source called me from their home in a bordering state to ask me a question.
How many LAFD frontline workers reside outside of California?
The source, who wished details to remain as anonymous as possible for the time being, told me their neighbor is employed as a frontline fighter with LAFD and yet resides full-time right next door to this source in this bordering state. This LAFD employee commutes back and forth from their home state to Los Angeles for their shifts.
The source then asked a chilling follow-up question.
How many LAFD frontline workers were still outside of the state in their full-time residences when LAFD called for all off-duty staff to report?
How many were missing from the fight because they don’t even live here?
In fact, this source told me, it is extremely common to run into people who live in that bordering state who work for the state of California.
“It’s so common to meet people who work for the state of California here that I’ve never even thought about how dangerous that could be. Not until last week. Now I’m wondering how many fire fighters live here, and how many weren’t even anywhere near LA to help.”
Not content to leave this as a rumor, I used my crack detective and reporting skills to mine the depths of information and hidden statistics for the truth…I did a Google search. I just wanted to see if anyone out there had ever asked the question, and lo and behold, the LA Times, of all places, had some things to say about this problem all the way back in 2021.
Columnist Steve Lopez published his query on September 8th, 2021.
How many members of the Los Angeles Fire Department live outside of California and commute to work?
Late last week, Cheryl Getuiza, LAFD’s director of public information, put the number at roughly a dozen. But when my column ran on Sunday, I heard from an LAFD captain who said that was way low, and off “by an order of magnitude.”
So I checked back with Getuiza, who said her math was “horrific,” and she’d misplaced a decimal point in her initial computation.
So here’s the correction:
“Currently,” she said, “a little more than 100 members, or 3% out of 3,300 live out of state.”
Before you start thinking the LA Times may have accidentally stumbled into some real truth-telling, just know Lopez wrote the article in order to shame first responders who were resisting COVID vaccine mandates for LA County. Even still, the questions this anti-liberty column asks are evergreen.
Should local tax dollars support pay and overtime compensation that is among the highest in the nation (Granucci made $247,000 last year with OT), or should such jobs be reserved for local residents?
Los Angeles is an easy city to commute to from out of state. It is a four hour drive to Las Vegas, a six hour drive to Phoenix, and an easy day’s drive from many parts of Idaho. It is also a major air traffic hub with multiple international airports throughout southern California. First responders in particular have long schedules to accommodate the nature of the job, making it easier to live elsewhere and commute in.
One LAFD source told me firefighters with long commutes can use liberal scheduling rules to work many consecutive days and then be gone for even longer stretches. In the case of a captain who’s frequently gone for long periods, the source said, department efficiency can suffer.
“It is widely known that stations that have these absentee captains are more likely to have personnel issues, poor station upkeep and lack of training,” said the source.
Do we think this issue has cleared up significantly since 2021?
I don’t think anyone needs a degree in journalism to know the answer to that question.
THERE WAS NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS.
A city by the ocean that can’t provide water in a fire emergency isn’t exactly the paragon of responsible management.
For the sake of this thought exercise, let us suppose these numbers haven’t shifted down much after COVID (and the corrected number is actually true and not more). After all, the cost of living in California is out of control. This is well known across the country. After last week and the ensuing onslaught of real reporting, it is also well known the LAFD isn’t properly funded and first responders make nowhere near the salaries needed to support a family in Los Angeles county.
On a night when winds and fires raged and the only victories to be had were small reports of beating back flames from individual homes, one hundred extra fire fighters may have made a lot of difference to a few homes.
Two hundred might have made a lot of difference to many homes.
One thousand? Now we’re talking about something truly scandalous to consider.
I don’t know if there are one thousand LAFD employees living out of state as they collect their California paychecks, but I think it is a conservative estimate to suppose at least one thousand California government employees in general live outside of the state.
What problems are those regular absences causing that we can’t even suss out right now?
A lack of staff and an increase in commuting employees at LAFD may have seemed no more than annoying a few years ago, but we have come face-to-face with the absolutely deadly consequences of this little-reported scandal.
What other deadly consequences lurk at the borders of our flaming state?
Californians deserve answers. Angelenos deserve answers. Americans deserve answers.
The people of Los Angeles are discovering the hard way they have been abandoned by their leaders, and the policies of those leaders are causing our most valuable workers to abandon the state in turn.
In fact, according to Lopez, this isn’t a new issue.
But living out of state is not a new phenomenon. Twenty-five years ago, The Times reported that nearly two dozen city firefighters lived out of state.
“For their taxpayer-subsidized lifestyles,” the article said, “these out-of-towners can thank a free-wheeling scheduling system that some fire experts warn may not be healthy for the firefighters or the public.”
I don’t judge anyone too harshly for taking advantage of this loophole. This is a tough state to thrive in, and even tougher to serve in. This disaster can be laid squarely at the feet of Karen Bass, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, the entire city government, and Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democrat supermajority in Sacramento.
They have delivered this hell to us. They must be held accountable.
One more thing - lest you be feeling a bit of warmth towards Mr. Lopez for alerting us to this issue during his COVID Brownshirt era, know that Lopez thinks the real problem is not the government, but conservatives.
And while I can understand the appeal of lower-cost housing in other states, you don’t have to leave California to escape exorbitant real estate prices.
One department source told me there’s a contingent of conservative firefighters who “hate California,” which celebrates its diversity. Another source told me many firefighters believe the state’s “elites” have aligned themselves with “the lower class and actively work against middle-class interests.” They are “choosing to relocate to areas where the community is more conservative.”
Ok, whatever. The point is that California is missing vital first responders in the county of Los Angeles. When disaster strikes, the city is not positioned to deploy every resource.
The results of that have been blatant and deadly.
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Outrageous but not surprising. Btw, you were awesome on Wilkow yesterday. I read that Newsom has a positive approval rating and 42% approve of Bass. Born and raised in California and I’ve never seen such dissonance. I remember the state recalling Gray Davis for gas taxes. I remember Rose Bird being impeached for being lenient on sex offenders. That California certainly doesn’t exist. Keep fighting!