{"id":73613,"date":"2025-06-18T17:10:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T00:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73613"},"modified":"2025-06-18T17:10:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T00:10:58","slug":"as-fires-burn-across-the-state-trumps-illegal-guard-deployment-is-already-leaving-firefighting-crews-short-staffed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73613","title":{"rendered":"As fires burn across the state, Trump\u2019s illegal Guard deployment is already leaving firefighting crews short-staffed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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What you need to know:<\/strong>\u00a0President Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles has already left crews fighting fires across the state short-staffed.<\/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<\/strong> \u2013\u00a0As multiple fires burn across the state today, a critical firefighting resource is short-staffed due to President Trump\u2019s illegal federalization of California\u2019s National Guard troops.<\/p>\n

CAL FIRE crews responding to the Monte Fire in San Diego have had to fill in gaps left by a\u00a0California National Guard (CalGuard)\u00a0Joint Task Force Rattlesnake<\/a>\u00a0team that is understaffed due to the federalization of some of its members.<\/p>\n

Task Force Rattlesnake is made up of over 300 California National Guard members, who work at the direction of CAL FIRE to help fight and prevent fires. More than half of that team has been diverted to Los Angeles as part of President Trump\u2019s illegal federalization of the Guard.<\/p>\n

Thanks to recent historic investments, CAL FIRE has been able to step up with robust resources to protect communities but Task Force Rattlesnake\u2019s understaffing and recent federal cuts create unnecessary strain.<\/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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“We\u2019re actively seeing the dangerous results of pulling the National Guard\u2019s Task Force Rattlesnake off of critical firefighting missions. Thanks to our investments, our CAL FIRE crews are stepping in to help fill the gaps and protect communities \u2014 but know this: Donald Trump is endangering Californians because of his reckless and authoritarian takeover of our National Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governor\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/strong><\/h4>\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

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

Despite the President\u2019s dangerous recklessness, the state stands ready to protect communities. 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. Over the next four years and beyond, CAL FIRE will be\u00a0hiring thousands of additional firefighters<\/a>, natural resource professionals, and support personnel to meet the state\u2019s growing demands.<\/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 recently announced 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>\u00a0A full list of California\u2019s progress on wildfire resilience is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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-73613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73613","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=73613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73614,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73613\/revisions\/73614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}