I forgot to mention that there are serious problems, not just with national fire protection coverage, but with the nation's disaster response system, as well.

Not to be political, but the current administration has done a pretty good job of trashing the nations ability to respond catastrophic emergencies. This started with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the massive bureaucratic reshuffling that entailed. Add funding problems, inexperienced and unqualified political appointees, privatization of key functions to wholly inept contractors, etc, and you end up with an entirely different sort of disaster.

The component I'm most familiar with, the National Disaster Medical System, actually had to be moved back out from under DHS and back to DHHS by Congressional mandate, but now the administration is not releasing Congressionally mandated funds where they are supposed to.

The teams that actually put the medically qualified boots on the ground can't get needed funds and supplies. For example, applications for the teams from critically needed specialists were left to linger for years without action, team administrators had to choose between working without pay or letting critical planning and preparation work go undone, and now, the teams' individual medical and equipment caches, which are essential to their function, are being taken away from the teams, where the teams could train, maintain and immediately deploy with them, and "regionalized" into the hands of remote, clueless regional contractors, with the dubious promise that they will magically re-appear in good order when and where needed in a disaster.

I'm told that the pharmacists who received such a contractor-"maintained" pharmacy cache for the CA wildfires found it completely useless, disorganized, full of outdated drugs, etc.

One Congress-critter was so upset by this that he got the FEDGOV to rescend the regionalization of his local team's cache. My own team is sorta writing off the FEDGOV until such time as they come to their senses, and we are increasingly working with the state, which recognizes the developing gap and in preparedness and is really stepping up to fill it.

Technically, we are under a sort of "gag rule" about any problems, but screw 'em. I work for the taxpayers and citizens, not the politicians and bureaucrats. They can fire me if they want to. They've really hurt what was once a darn good, effective, cost-efficient, volunteer-based system, and the widespread opinions of the experts in the know is that Americans will die as a result.

I'm mad as hell, and I think every American should be, too.

See: http://www.nadmat.org/index.cfm/m/3/dn/Letters%20and%20Presentations/ if you'd like to learn more.


Jeff