California has been undergoing wildfires since the beginning of January 2025. The projected cost to cover the damages is estimated to be over two-billion dollars, over three-thousand homes have been destroyed along with thousands of acres for farming.
The fires started from a dry environment with high winds. These fires can randomly start anywhere in the right conditions and travel for miles while taking down fresh land with it.
From Southern California and Los Angelos, the estimated economic loss can be anywhere from fifty-seven billion to a striking two-hundred billion. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is aiding the victims of the fires for the first month that a disaster has taken place.
Over seven thousand five hundred firefighters in the California have been working together to put an end to the fire and get them under control. Everyday these firefighters are putting their lives on the end and working overtime to control these fires.
Unfortunately, they are putting out these with very limited resources. Just a few weeks before the fires started, the LA fire chief shortened the fire departments budget by almost eight-teen million dollars.
This loss of money for the department strongly restricted the firefighters access to supplies for these fires. The supplies needed can range from new gear, more tactical tools, and easier access to water supply.
Other programs helping the fires like air operations and disaster response needed all hands-on deck to help control these fires, but the overtime workers cannot be compensated for their extra work.
Due to the lack on funds in their budget that means they had to let go of positions. For example, there is a decrease in mechanics for the firefighters which is causing fire trucks to end up in yards and not being put to use.
The need for more people to aid the firefighters has grown so extreme, that inmates from California are now helping alongside the firefighters. There is a four-day training program they can go through to become ready to fight fires.
These inmates receive ten dollars and twenty-four cents an hour and are supposed to gain and extra dollar for every hour of emergency work but there is a good chance that is not happening because of the budget restrictions.
Even though California has great access to large bodies of water, they cannot use the ocean water to put out fires. The minerals and other materials in it can be damaging to the metal and steel equipment used by firefighters and can also damage the surrounding environment.
It can be said that these fires were not anticipated, they never are, but because California has a history of being the home to strong wildfires, there is no solid explanation has to what caused a sharp decrease in the budget.
These fires have burned over fifty-thousand acres, have burned down over twelve buildings, and have taken twenty-four lives. It may be easy to place the blame on the LA Chief for the budget cut, but no one could have predicted these fires.
There should have never been a budget cut for any department regarding first responders, especially ones who are needed at the most spontaneous times but all that can happen now is that those helping with the fires get them under control quickly.
