This is from June after the Tahoe fire. Where's the National Guard Arnold?

Arnold's Katrina? Governor vetoed bills to strengthen fire departments

by: djardin
Wed Jun 27, 2007 at 12:28:35 PM PDT

(Although this is from June, it is clearly relevant to this week's events. - promoted by Robert in Monterey)

As the Tahoe fire kicks off an extremely dangerous fire season, the Governor's budget-cutting has left the state's fire departments woefully short on recommended equipment and staff.

On May 20, 2007, the Los Angeles Times ran an article, Fire danger acute as '03 lessons fade, detailing the failure of the state to act on recommendations stemming from the worst wildfires in the state's history.

The article lays out many recommendations by Schwarzenegger's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission that have not been funded. Many of them are mission critical.

Here are some of the recommendations:

• Engines: The state remains far short of the 150 additional engines recommended to supplement the governor's Office of Emergency Services fleet of 110. The first of 19 new engines will be delivered by July. Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said getting more trucks is crucial to avoid a repeat of 2003, when departments had firefighters available but not enough trucks to get them to the front lines. "We had run out of vehicles," he said.

• Helicopter fleet. The commission found that the state's aging fire helicopters needed to be replaced. But no new choppers have been purchased. "The fleet itself is excess aircraft built in the '60s," said Mike Padilla, chief of aviation with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "They are still doing the job … [but] they're getting older."

• Communications: In 2003, firefighters and law enforcement officers used different radio frequencies, so information didn't always get passed along. In San Diego's Cedar fire, radio lines broke down because of volume, leaving firefighters vulnerable. These problems remain. "It's hard to get everyone on a system or off a system," said Kim Zagaris, fire chief for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. "It's not cheap."

• Staffing: The commission recommended that all state fire engines sent to major wildfires have at least four firefighters. Instead, the state puts four firefighters on fire engines based on fire threat conditions. State firetrucks in high-risk fire zones have four-person crews, but crews elsewhere that would come in as reinforcements might have only three, Jones said. "It's much more productive to have four persons on an engine than three" to hold fire lines and carve fire breaks, he said.

The Democratic legislature did fund these recommendations -- passing five bills that would have put "tens of millions of dollars" towards new equipment and increased staff. Schwarzenegger vetoed four of them. The governor did sign a fifth bill requiring that local governments draft safety plans and submit them to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

But it doesn't take effect until 2010.