r/Firefighting • u/H0sedragg3r FF/ EMT • Jul 07 '25

News Firefighters from Mexico respond to Texas Hill Country flooding, marking an international response

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2025/07/07/firefighters-from-mexico-respond-to-texas-hill-country-flooding-marking-an-international-response/
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag8314 Jul 07 '25

So the national guard was in California and FEMA is shut down. At least the pros from Mexico showed up.

9

u/HomelessRodeo Jul 07 '25

Texas has their own NG and SG.

4

u/Puzzleheaded-Bag8314 Jul 07 '25

Did they show up ?

5

u/L_DUB_U Jul 08 '25

Yes a long with TIFMAS and two state task forces.

2

u/Puzzleheaded-Bag8314 Jul 08 '25

The two FEMA task force teams ? How many teams are stood up at one time nationwide and how many states would normally be represented at an event this size ?

3

u/wes25164 Jul 08 '25

The Texas A&M Task Force. TF 1 and 2 were activated at the beginning of the incident, TF 3 was activated yesterday morning. Between all three task force assets and TIFMAS groups, you're looking at more than 1300 personnel.

There's not enough routine with events of this magnitude to compare and contrast different responses. Different events call for different resources, and time between events represents lessons learned from prior events. Also, remember your incident command system, not all of these resources are just stood up and ready in the event of one event happening, these things have to be activated, the framework already in place for an incident to be built in. It's not a bunch of inter-state teams being activated all at once. But an event can be scaled as big or as small as is needed.

1

u/L_DUB_U Jul 08 '25

Yes, the two FEMA task forces that are activated by the Governor of the State and when a nation wide request comes in the Governor approves the activation. FEMA doesn't own much for responses, they only pay for the response. The task forces are composed of many people who specialize in specific skills. They have 3 groups with one group on standby for a 30 day cycle. They have to be able to be at College Station within a certain time frame when activated.

Texas is pretty proactive for wildfires and flooding. Typically they will have strike teams for wildfires prepositioned in the area of high fire danger to be able to respond. Typically they have boat teams in areas where flooding is expected. Unfortunately, in events like this you can never be prepared enough or have enough resources in the exact area to prevent a event like this from happening.

I am not sure how many out of state teams are currently in Texas. Texas has TIFMAS which can pull resources from every fire department in the state that has the equipment and specialized skills that the incident needs. Unless helicopters, airplanes, or some type of equipment that you don't normally see in fire station isn't needed or immediately available, it can come from within the state. A good point is the coast guard helicopters with rescue swimmers. Not many city or state agencies have helicopters and rescue swimmers, so the request is made thru FEMA for those federal resources.