Another own goal???

By Newsome...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration shut down a highly trained, all-volunteer team of certified firefighters in early 2024—a move that rendered the California National Guard incapable of sending a complete firefighting force to Los Angeles until 10 days after the deadly fires broke out in the city, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Launched in 2020, Team Blaze was an on-call strike force staffed entirely with certified firefighters of the California State Guard, a volunteer militia force that reports directly to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Former State Guard commanding general Jay Coggan said its members attended regular trainings at their own expense, and an outside charity procured much of the team’s firefighting equipment at no cost to the state. California was obligated to pay Team Blaze only when the unit was activated to fight a wildfire, and by 2023 Coggan had plans to expand its ranks to 1,000 certified volunteer firefighters on standby all across the state.

But in January 2024, the Newsom administration disbanded Team Blaze after barring its charitable benefactor from providing free firefighting equipment to its volunteers.

Full article, HERE from the Washington Free Beacon.

This one truly makes NO sense to me. They were given free equipment, did training on their own time, and fulfilled their Guard duties. What was not to like???

They were a trained quick response team that could be on scene in literally 24 hours anywhere in CA, and were probably loaned out to other states if requested.

This one sounds like another penny wise pound foolish move, but I can't help but wonder 'what' prompted this, unless the benefactor was a 'threat' to Newsome in some way.

Sigh... I feel for those folks, and those who have lost lives, homes, and belongings to what seems to be an avalanche of bad decisions that rolled from Sacramento all the way down to LAFD.