r/Firefighting • u/JohannLandier75 Tennessee FF (Career) • Feb 08 '25

News Federal Hiring Freeze prevents on-boarding of wildland firefighters

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/08/us/firefighters-federal-hiring-freeze/index.html
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u/Big-Style-5490 Feb 09 '25

Can’t change what’s already taken place as far as disaster. What matters now and in the future is funding and staffing. No one is doing forestry management so don’t pretend it’s backed by either political party you dope. The water supply would have been completely inundated no matter where the fire took place. I mean, if you really know what you’re talking about…

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

These fire should have never happened, and you are a moron if you think proper forest management doesn’t take place in other states. These fires happen from incompetent at the state level and even county level. Take accountability, that’s what the fire service is built on. Are you even a FF? Half of this sub Reddit isn’t and that’s clear as day, nothing but a bunch of trump hating trolls

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u/OttoOtter Feb 09 '25

Looks like you live in South Florida. Not sure why anyone would listen to your opinion about fire in California.

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

Well for well for one, we actually have proper forestry management and controlled burns in our state, second of all you can’t smell your own shit on your knees. I understand your allegiance for California, I assume you are a native but it’s okay to admit your state is run like dog shit, stop blaming Trump for all your problems, he’s been in office for 3 weeks. Dip shit Biden did nothing for you these last 4 years.

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u/Big-Style-5490 Feb 09 '25

Did more for the fire service than any president has in your lifetime. Wait and see if you don’t believe me.

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

I needed that laugh.

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u/HokieFireman Fire, EM Feb 09 '25

Hey tell us more how cutting grants, funding, pay, now entire agencies that work with USAR teams and EM and firefighters especially wildland is a good thing?

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

Why isn’t State government in California taking control of their forestry properly?

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u/HokieFireman Fire, EM Feb 09 '25

48% of all land in California is federal land first so when your orange god cut federal fire budgets guess what he cut. As for California doing land management. Cal Fire has an entire app you can track where they do live burns, land and brush clearing, defensible space operations. Weird you don’t ask these questions of Texas which just has the largest lower 48 WUI fire ever in modern history last year.

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

So go ahead and talk about Texas. Preventable? Poor management? The corpse was in the WH last year, what did he do about it since this is a Fed issue?

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u/HokieFireman Fire, EM Feb 09 '25

Increased pay of federal firefighters, increased pay of wildland techs, added tens of millions in grants and loans to local state governments to prepare and prevent wildland fires. Proposed hundreds of millions in spending over 25 years from a commission from a set of recommendations for long term fire prevention.

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u/SanJOahu84 Feb 11 '25

Where did the other guy go? 

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u/OttoOtter Feb 09 '25

Lol. Funny story: I've had to go out to Florida and Georgia multiple times because apparently, the locals struggle with burning on flat coastal plains or flat pine plantations. The only people I've met there after multiple years of winter burning that are competent are from at least 2 time zones away.

Your comments about fire mitigation in the Sanata Monica mountains expose you as more ignorant than any western volly firefighter clad in the brightest of yellow shirts.

Also I'm not from California, but as is with the case with most fed guys, we travel all over the country and will see more fire in a few seasons than folks like you will in a lifetime.

You wouldn't make it 24 hours with a Cali hotshot crew. You wouldn't know what to make of all the fire and smoke and men and women actually working for more than 4 hours of the day.

And yeah. This is entirely on Trump. I just showed you an email that came from the Whitehouse encouraging firefighters, among others, to quit.

Just because you're a loud-mouthed arrogant gooner who thinks running 20 lift-assists a shift makes you God's gift to fire and EMS doesn't make it so.

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u/synapt PA Volunteer Feb 10 '25

Yeah his claim about Florida is kind of entertaining considering in 2023 Florida had 101,000~ acres burned in 2,600~ wildfires.

I feel that's an impressive accomplishment for a state that's 31% wetlands.

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

So you are telling me that these fires were not preventable at all right? Nothing could have been done differently to change the out come? You speak broadly about all your experience but fail to talk about anything preventative. This falls on Gaven Newsome, the LA county Mayor and Fire Chief.

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u/OttoOtter Feb 09 '25

The only real answer, if you're looking for one, is to quit letting people build houses in fire-prone and fire dependent ecosystems.

All the firefighters, water, and money in the world won't stop a fire burning in 100 MPH gusts.

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

I agree, also update building code and stop building paper houses. CBS should the standard.

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u/OttoOtter Feb 09 '25

There are firewise laws in many places, but if you look at places that burned (in. The Topanga Canyon communities) you find that they predate firewise programs.

What everyone should be paying attention to is if LA County and Newsome let folks rebuild in the same places with the same infrastructure and same codes as before.

If they do I'll absolutely join you in mocking their stupidity and blame them for the inevitable repeat of this.

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u/Big-Style-5490 Feb 09 '25

All fires are preventable. Conditions that are prevalent play a hell of a cause. Were you there? Sustainable winds of 30+ mph drive fire like you can’t imagine. Now take a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood full of dry vegetation everywhere (that’s the state’s fault? Or the natural environment?). Add the terrain there. Also the winds were significantly higher, I was just stating the obvious. What kind of fire attack do you expect to keep that in check? And considering it’s about funding with you, what should it cost you tax dollar wise?

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u/Skunk_Ape- Feb 09 '25

It’s not about funding to me at all, it’s about fire management that you have control over, like clearing out dried out vegetation that is the actual fuel. Maybe also restore the natural flow of water through California so SoCal isn’t in a perpetual state of drought.

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u/LionTraditional9651 Feb 09 '25

My dude why are spending time debating a topic you clearly know nothing about.