Posted on 01/08/2025 3:37:43 PM PST by Kazan
Los Angeles County Fire Department’s decision to donate surplus firefighting equipment to Ukraine in 2022 is being met with heavy criticism as California faces a barrage of wildfires in 2024.
With thousands of acres scorched, homes lost, and first responders stretched to their limits, the timing of this earlier “humanitarian” gesture has now come back to haunt the state.
In March 2022, the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) joined a national effort to collect and donate surplus equipment and gear to support first responders in Ukraine.
This initiative involved gathering items such as hoses, nozzles, turnouts, helmets, body armor, and other personal protective equipment to address shortages faced by Ukrainian emergency services during the conflict.
According to the press release:
On Thursday, March 17, 2022, the Los Angeles County Fire Department joined Fourth District Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn at Fire Station 171 in the City of Inglewood to announce they would join the national effort to gather and donate surplus equipment and gear overseas to help first responders in the country of Ukraine.
In its fourth week of conflict with Russia, first responders in Ukraine are faced with shortages in supplies to help provide basic emergency services and fire protection to its citizens and communities.
“As Ukrainian firefighters continue to work under extreme peril to remove victims with limited resources, we felt the need to step up and help in some way,” said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl L. Osby.
Surplus items such as hoses, nozzles, turnouts, helmets, body armor, and other associated personal protective equipment will be collected and sent to assist with the shortage.
Firefighters from the three Central Coast counties in California—San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County, and Monterey County—teamed up with southern California fire departments to gather donations for Ukrainian firefighters overseas.
KEYT reported:
Santa Barbara City Fire Captain Isaac Siegel took the lead on the effort to collect supplies on the South Central Coast, and agencies from San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties all stepped up quickly to gather donations, said Montecito Fire spokeswoman Christina Favuzzi.
The effort is part of Project Joint Guardian, which is a nationwide program to send firefighting and rescue equipment to first responders in Ukraine, Favuzzi added.
A crew of Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Carpinteria-Summerland firefighters traveled to San Diego on Tuesday, picking up supplies from other fire departments along the way.
They will return to Santa Barbara on Wednesday afternoon, and Direct Relief International will inventory the items and then ship them to Ukraine, Favuzzi said.
Adding fuel to the fire is the Biden regime’s USAID program, which has reportedly invested millions in Ukraine’s emergency response infrastructure.
According to investigative reporter Natalie Winters, “Joe Biden’s USAID has funded 16 Ukrainian Fire Departments with “protective gear, motor pumps, chainsaws, rescue motor cutters, rechargeable spotlights, fire extinguishers, and hydraulic rescue tools.”
Elon Musk immediately weighed in stating, “But what about California?”
Southern California is grappling with multiple severe wildfires, notably the Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire, Hurst Fire, and now Woodley Fire.
The Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles have already claimed two lives and destroyed over 1,000 structures, with firefighters facing unprecedented challenges, including water shortages from dry hydrants.
Critics argue that the equipment sent abroad could have been utilized to bolster local firefighting efforts.
Are you freaking kidding me? This bit of info needs to get to the Trump camp.
What is it about Ukraine that the liberals love?(You don’t have to answer that, it is a rhetorical question.)
Can’t wait to see how the Ukie zeepers will twist this Pretzel.
1. Fighting wild fires in California is not a federal-first government priority and if California had harnessed its own resoucres adequately and effieintly it would be doing a better job than it is doing in the current wild fire situation.
2. So what does any of this have to do with anything that went to Urkaine? Zero, zip, nada.
3. Anyone who thinks any funding or aid to Ukraine would have otherwise, under any conditions, automatically have gone instead of California is wrong, it wouldn’t have.
Bringing in Ukraine vis-a-vis the wild fire situation in California is grasping at straws to go out of context.
But that is what GP often does.
Whaaaat? This does have >0 to do with federal funding.
There are hundreds of National Forest acres in the fire areas.
I live in Orange County. Whenever I slip out from behind the Orange Curtain, into L.A., I am always amazed how old the First Responder’s equipment is, in comparison to OC. Cop Cars that are 20+ years old, etc. Now if they are in good shape, more power to them, but I can’t say their equipment appears that way.
The idea that they had gear to donate to another country is ludicrous. I’d love to hear what the rank and file firefighters have to say, about this !
Who shut the water off?
Slober Ukrainia
Unbelievable stupidity to ever think any fire truck is expendable in an area that has frequent fires. We lived in Marina del Rey in the eighties in an apartment in a round building so we could watch fires north of us in Malibu and even some to the east of LA.
(And this is reason #543 to hate Zelensky more.)
Also just read that the water and power “officials” in LA rake in massive salaries 700 and 800k. Insane.
(And this is reason #543 to hate Zelensky more.)
I hate Zelensky but he is just a con artist. I hate that bastard Biden and his ilk even more. And, I rarely use the word “hate”.
It didn’t take long for you Ukranian ass kissers to show up.
Right below you, post number 4.
Right.
Give the Ukraine resources that they won’t use for tax paying citizens of their own country.
Democrats are the consummate traitors.
“It didn’t take long for you Ukranian ass kissers to show up.”
It didn’t take long for you slandering insulters to show up.
For some reason I thought of this joke:
A fire started on some grasslands near a farm and the fire department was called to put it out.
The fire was more than the department could handle. Someone suggested that a nearby volunteer bunch be called. Despite some doubt that the volunteer outfit would be of any assistance, the call was made.
“That ought to be obvious,” he responded, wiping ashes off his coat. “The first thing we’re gonna do is get the brakes fixed on our fire truck!”
The volunteers arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck. They rumbled straight towards the fire, drove right into the middle of the flames and stopped! The firemen jumped off the truck and frantically started spraying water in all directions. Soon they had snuffed out the centre of the fire, breaking the blaze into two easily controlled parts.
Watching all this, the farmer was so impressed with the volunteer fire department’s work and was so grateful that his farm had been spared, that right there on the spot he presented the volunteers with a check for $1,000. A local news reporter asked the volunteer fire captain what the department planned to do with the funds.
The Hotshot Wake Up
@HotshotWake
California: Pacific Palisades has been completely devastated by the Palisades Fire. This footage was sent in from the individual who took it, showing the destruction that took place in his neighborhood. 🙏
The attached photo shows neighborhood after neighborhood that were burned to the ground.
Some reports are saying nearly 75% of the community has been destroyed. Fire Managers on the Eaton Fire have reported 5 civilian fatalities, and expect more. It will take time to account for everyone that has evacuated and go house to house with searches until a final number came be released.
There are already statements being made that the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort, and insurance companies may not have the immense amount of capital to cover the losses. This is something I warned about last year, as the STATE’s FAIR Plan was oversubscribed and completely dependent on other policy holders.
I said it would take one big fire through a community to bankrupt the entire system, little did I know it would come less than a year later. The after effects of this will be felt years.
https://x.com/HotshotWake/status/1877145515349233738
The raging fires have already claimed two lives and destroyed 1,000’s of acres and homes, as firefighters face unprecedented challenges, such as water shortages from dry hydrants. Tax paid equipment sent to Ukraine was needed to bolster these firefighting efforts.
Demented Joe Biden’s USAID tax dollars funded 16 Ukrainian Fire Depts
<><>with protective gear, motor pumps,
<><>chainsaws, rescue motor cutters,
<><>rechargeable spotlights, fire extinguishers,
<><>and hydraulic rescue tools.
The lesbian LA fire chief, govt power and water “officials” rake in massive salaries $700 and 800k per annum, plus perks, and all they can steal.
<> But that is what GP often does. <>
And what do you do?
Defend the indefensible?
All of the time, effort and money that went to ANY place OTHER than California, was not putting the people of California, first, and is demonstrably, virtue signaling at it’s worst.
How many volunteer fire departments in California, are just getting by on the scraps that they operate on?
Let EUROPE and the go**amn Davos/WEF/EU, stick up for the Ukes. Let these bourgeois pieces of DOGSQUEEZE spend their TRILLIONS on the conflict that is in THEIR backyard.
Let them collect excess supplies from THEIR fire departments, and send it to the killing fields of Ukraine.
Slava Ukraine!
I’ll insult you Uke ass kissers every chance I get.
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