In a memo that has not been previously reported, chief told city fire commissioners that L.A. relied almost entirely on overburdened “hand crews” from other jurisdictions to handle its brush fire emergencies.
By Aaron C. Davis, Shawn Boburg, Brianna Sacks, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Joyce Sohyun Lee, Washington Post
Two years before wildfires incinerated swaths of Los Angeles, the city’s Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley identified “one significant area of weakness” in her department’s ability to contain wildfires. L.A. had no specialized wildland unit to respond to daily brush fires and scrape vegetation, dig ditches and do the other labor to ensure blazes did not spread or rekindle, she wrote on Jan. 5, 2023, asking for $7 million to assemble its own squad.
In a memo that has not been previously reported, she told city fire commissioners that L.A. relied almost entirely on overburdened “hand crews” from other jurisdictions to bring such muscle to its brush fire emergencies. Hand crews, the most elite of which are sometimes called “hotshots,” fight wildfires with chain saws, axes and shovels, setting containment lines and then sticking around to meticulously monitor smoldering fires, feeling by hand for heat and digging out live spots to make sure fires don’t relight.
The city staffed its own team — made up of unpaid, mostly teenage volunteers — only on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. Crowley warned the commission that there would inevitably come a day when L.A. would need the important grunt work of a “hand crew” and one would not be available, which could “mean the difference in containment or out of control spread.”
Two years before wildfires incinerated swaths of Los Angeles, the city’s Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley identified “one significant area of weakness” in her department’s ability to contain wildfires. L.A. had no specialized wildland unit to respond to daily brush fires and scrape vegetation, dig ditches and do the other labor to ensure blazes did not spread or rekindle, she wrote on Jan. 5, 2023, asking for $7 million to assemble its own squad.
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