{"id":73705,"date":"2025-06-24T16:21:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73705"},"modified":"2025-06-24T16:21:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:21:45","slug":"california-national-guard-fire-crews-operating-at-just-40-capacity-due-to-trumps-illegal-guard-deployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73705","title":{"rendered":"California National Guard fire crews operating at just 40% capacity due to Trump\u2019s illegal Guard deployment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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What you need to know:\u00a0<\/strong>President Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles continues to hamstring crucial firefighting resources in California at the height of\u00a0peak fire season.<\/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\u00a0With fires popping up across the state, the California National Guard\u2019s (CalGuard) critical firefighting crews \u2013 known as Task Force Rattlesnake \u2013 are operating at just 40% capacity. Eight of 14 teams have been diverted to Los Angeles as part of President Trump\u2019s illegal \u2013\u00a0and highly inefficient<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 federalization of the Guard. Capacity has only worsened, reducing available crews from nine of 14 last week to just six now.<\/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. The President\u2019s illegal federalization of the Guard has\u00a0already impacted firefighting efforts<\/a>, leaving CAL FIRE to step in to fill the gaps left by the Guard\u2019s understaffing.<\/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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“With peak fire season well underway\u00a0across California, we need all available resources to protect communities. President Trump: rescind your illegal order and get the Guard back to the critical firefighting and prevention work that actually keeps communities safe.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Governor\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/strong><\/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 strain caused by President Trump, California 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-73705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73705","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=73705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73706,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73705\/revisions\/73706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}