American Firefighters To Be Fired
Rachel Granberg, a firefighter who represents the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), recently commented, “I know multiple people who were supposed to start work on Monday and were not able to.” Just as the LA wildfires have been contained, there is still a threat that there will be more. California is not the only area with similar threats. The US only has 18,000 firefighters to cover the entire country. Local groups support them in some cases.
Fire Layoffs
The cuts are an example of job cuts under the new administration. Some seem to be random, and there is little consideration about how essential these jobs may be,
The National Interagency Fire Center says there are 70,000 wildfires in the US each year, and that number is rising due to drought and high winds. Wildfire suppression costs have risen to $3 billion. The average size of all wildfires over the last decade is 7 million acres a year.
LA Wildfires
The LA wildfires exemplify how a single event can eat up resources. Hundreds of firefighters were there for as long as a week, and teams from Mexico and Canada joined them.
As the wildfire problems get worse, the number of firefighters is shrinking.
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