The Los Angeles United Firefighters president broke down in tears on live TV as he blamed the departments lack of cash for their limited response to the catastrophic LA fires.
Freddy Escobar, a 35-year veteran of the LA Fire Department, said he had warned ‘for years’ that a disaster like this could happen, and blamed money for their dated response.
Escobar told CNN: ‘This is a woefully understaffed fire department. We’re either going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect 2025, or we’re going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect the 1960s.’
Millions of dollars of rescue equipment are sitting in a lot unused because the fire department can’t afford to repair it, the outlet reported
‘It’s dire, someone will die,’ journalist Kyung Lah recalled Escobar saying at a commission meeting just one month ago.
Escober said hearing the words again was ‘eerie, because that’s what occurred,’ before he broke into tears.
‘So, it’s – let me just take a minute, sorry,’ he said. You’re not supposed to make me cry.’
Escobar said the underfunding of the department, and the understaffing, would ultimately cost the highest price for the residents in LA.
Freddy Escobar, 35-year veteran of the LA Fire Department, said he had warned ‘for years’ that a disaster like this could happen, and blamed money for their dated response
Escobar said the underfunding of the department, and the understaffing, would ultimately cost the highest price for the residents in LA
‘The people of Los Angeles deserve a fully staffed, first-class fire department. Our firefighters will continue to do our part. It’s time for city leaders to do theirs,’ Escobar said
‘If we cut one position, if we close one station, if we close one resource, the residents of Los Angeles are going to pay the ultimate sacrifice and someone will die,’ he said in a video clip from an LA Fire Commission meeting while urging for the city to reconsider the budget.
‘These cuts came at exactly the wrong time,’ Chuong Ho, of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles, said at the same meeting. ‘With calls for services at an all-time high, and our firefighters at their breaking point.’
City Council Member Traci Park added: ‘We are straining our departments resources beyond the brink, and we cannot continue on this path.’
Park later told Lan that large areas of the city were left with ‘no emergency response resources available.’
Los Angeles ranks ninth out of the ten biggest cities in the nation for the number of firefighters per resident.
Park said: ‘People are rightly upset, not only that this happened, but there is a sense that we as local leaders needed to do more for them. I feel like I let them down, and I’ve been screaming about it from the day I came in.’
‘I think this has to be the wake-up call.’
Last May, Escobar, told the city during a budget hearing: ‘We don’t have enough firefighters and medics, we don’t have enough fire engines, we don’t have enough trucks and ambulances in the field.’
‘If we cut one position, if we close one station, if we close one resource, the residents of Los Angeles are going to pay the ultimate sacrifice and someone will die,’ Escobar said in a video clip from an LA Fire Commission meeting while urging for the city to reconsider the budget
The bruised and battered city of Los Angeles remains on high alert as the extreme weather conditions which sparked apocalyptic infernos intensify again
He added: ‘We don’t have the equipment and staffing that we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year.’
‘The LAFD has fewer firefighters and medics today than we had 15 years ago, but our emergency calls for service has increased by more than 50% during that same time,’ testified Escobar.
Fellow captain and union leader Chuong Ho added at the same meeting: ‘It just makes no sense to have million-dollar fire trucks and engines taken out of service and sidelined because we don’t have enough mechanics to keep them running.’
It was revealed the fire department recently asked for nearly $100 million to replace its entire fleet just two months before the wildfires.
In a preliminary budget request for 2025/26, signed by Fire Chief Kristin Rowley, made on October 29, the LAFD asked for $96,535,000 to fund a ‘fleet replacement plan’.
The firefighting force said in its request to the city: ‘Many vehicles have surpassed their expected service life, leading to increased maintenance costs, reduces parts availability and potential downtime.’
And in its formal proposal to the city in November, it requested $24,063,000 for ‘new fleet/apparatus purchases’.
In the preliminary budget request, the LAFD also asked for more than $1.9million to restore 16 maintenance positions ‘deleted’ in last year’s budget.
Captain and union leader Chuong Ho added at the same meeting: ‘It just makes no sense to have million-dollar fire trucks and engines taken out of service and sidelined because we don’t have enough mechanics to keep them running’
The infernos that are consuming Los Angeles have so far killed at least 24 and have displaced more than 200,000 people, and critics have been excoriating the city’s leadership for their decision to cut the LAFD’s already dwindling budget
Firefighters are still battling to get the major blazes under control. They’ve torn through more than 40,000 acres of land, destroyed an estimated 12,300 structures and cost at least 24 people their lives
It said in its request: ‘The positions support fleet maintenance, equipment engineering, purchasing and warehouse management and distribution.’
The LAFD also asked for $3.1 million to replace body armor worn by ‘60% of sworn members.’
Karen Bass is due to present the city’s budget in April.
While the fire department’s budget steadily grew from $674.27 million in 2019 to $819.64 million in 2025, this year it faced a significant fall from $837.19 million in 2024.
In a December memo, Rowley said the cut of $17.6 million ‘adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.’
The memo also pointed to a $7 million reduction in overtime.
A leaked memo last week revealed that Karen Bass had demanded the LAFD make an additional $49 million budget cut, on top of the $17.6 million cut.
The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department’s ability to respond to emergencies, sources previously told DailyMail.com.
‘We don’t have the equipment and staffing that we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year,’ Escobar said
The Palisades Fire – the largest of the three blazes ripping through Los Angeles – ignited on January 7 has scorched 23,713 acres
The infernos that are consuming Los Angeles have so far killed at least 24 and have displaced more than 200,000 people, and critics have been excoriating the city’s leadership for their decision to cut the LAFD’s already dwindling budget.
But last week, LA mayor Karen Bass denied that the cuts she implemented had any impact on the fire department’s ability to deal with the ongoing wildfires.
‘I think if you go back and look at the reductions that have been made, there were no reductions that would have impacted the situation we were dealing with over the last couple of days’, she said.
Escobar however disagreed, writing in an op-ed for USA Today: ‘We can, and will, get through these devastating fires and get to work on the recovery process immediately. As part of this recovery, Los Angeles is going to have to make consequential decisions.
‘Will we finally invest in our fire department and build the fire stations and hire the firefighters we need to protect Los Angeles? Can we and will we build the fire department that we need as we move toward the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games and as we face the everyday public safety challenges that come from our residents?
‘The people of Los Angeles deserve a fully staffed, first-class fire department. Our firefighters will continue to do our part. It’s time for city leaders to do theirs.’