{"id":73565,"date":"2025-06-17T10:47:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73565"},"modified":"2025-06-18T09:48:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T16:48:23","slug":"over-half-of-this-crucial-firefighting-team-has-been-diverted-off-wildfire-work-as-part-of-trumps-illegal-guard-deployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73565","title":{"rendered":"Over half of this crucial firefighting team has been diverted off wildfire work as part of Trump\u2019s illegal Guard deployment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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What you need to know:<\/strong>\u00a0President Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles is hamstringing firefighting resources in California just as peak fire season begins.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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SACRAMENTO \u2013 All 14 Joint Task Force Rattlesnake teams responded to the Los Angeles fires in January. Now, only nine are available and each of those are significantly understaffed, thanks to President Trump\u2019s illegal deployment of federal troops to\u00a0Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Joint Task Force Rattlesnake<\/a>\u00a0is made up of over 300 California National Guard (CalGuard) members, who work at the direction of CAL FIRE to help fight and prevent fires. More than half of that team has been diverted off of wildfire efforts\u00a0to Los Angeles as part of President Trump\u2019s illegal federalization of the Guard.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWith peak fire season right on the horizon, we need all available boots on the ground to protect communities. President Trump\u2019s illegal militarization of Los Angeles is sidelining crucial firefighting and prevention resources \u2013 more than half of Task Force Rattlesnake.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to end the chaos and get California\u2019s National Guard back to this important work.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\nGovernor\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The National Guard impact is on top of the Trump administration\u2019s dangerous\u00a0cuts to the U.S. Forest Service<\/a>, which also threatens the safety of communities across the state. The U.S. Forest Service has lost 10% of all positions and 25% of positions outside of direct wildfire response \u2013 both of which are likely to impact wildfire response this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn just the first five months of 2025 California has experienced more than 2,300 wildfires,”\u00a0said CAL FIRE Director and Fire Chief Joe Tyler.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cHaving the necessary firefighting apparatus and personnel is critical to our mission at CAL FIRE.”<\/p>\n

California\u2019s unprecedented wildfire readiness<\/h2>\n

Despite the federal cuts, California remains ready. As part of the state\u2019s ongoing investment in wildfire resilience and emergency response, CAL FIRE has significantly expanded its workforce over the past five years by adding an average of 1,800 full-time and 600 seasonal positions annually \u2013 nearly double that from the previous administration.<\/p>\n

Late last month, the Governor announced\u00a0$72 million for projects across the state<\/a>\u00a0that help reduce catastrophic wildfire risk. Additionally, 20 new vegetation management projects spanning nearly 8,000 acres\u00a0have already been approved<\/a>\u00a0for fast-tracking under the Governor\u2019s new streamlining initiative.<\/p>\n

This builds on consecutive years of intensive and focused work by California to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires, and Governor Newsom\u2019s emergency proclamation signed in March to fast-track forest and vegetation management projects throughout the state. Additionally, to bolster the state\u2019s ability to respond to fires, Governor Newsom announced last week that the state\u2019s\u00a0second C-130 Hercules airtanker is ready for firefighting operations<\/a>, adding to the largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world.<\/p>\n

New, bold moves to streamline state-level regulatory processes builds long-term efforts already underway in California to\u00a0increase wildfire response and forest management in the face of a hotter, drier climate.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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What you need to know:\u00a0President Trump’s...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73566,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73565\/revisions\/73566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}