Less than 12 hours after a massive fire began ripping through the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Fire Department made a rare request. All LAFD firefighters, including those off-duty, were asked to phone in their availability. Stoked by high winds, the blaze was growing quickly, and the LAFD was already fighting a losing battle. Such a summons hadn’t been issued in nearly two decades.

As of January 8, the Palisades Fire is 0 percent contained. Two additional wildfires, the Hurst Fire and the Eaton Fire, are also currently at zero containment as they scorch greater Los Angeles County, burning thousands of acres, destroying over 1,100 structures, and killing at least five people. As hundreds of firefighters race to stop the spread, gusting Santa Ana winds and a landscape desiccated by a bone-dry winter — an anomaly linked to broader climate change trends — aren’t the only obstacles the LAFD is facing.

The LAFD makes up about 6 percent of the city’s expense budget; the LAPD receives 15 percent.

In June, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed an adopted $12.8 billion budget that cut the fire department’s funding by more than $17.5 million, or around 2 percent of the previous year’s budget of $837 million. It was the second-largest departmental operating cut to come out of the city’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget, which shaved funding from the majority of city departments — but not the police. The Los Angeles Police Department received a funding bump of nearly $126 million. The LAFD makes up about 6 percent of the city’s expense budget; the LAPD receives 15 percent of the funds.

“What is currently happening and unfolding is what we have been warning about,” said Ricci Sergienko, a lawyer and organizer with People’s City Council LA. “The consistent defunding of other city programs in order to give the LAPD billions a year has consequences, and these elected officials do actually have blood on their hands. The city is unprepared to handle this fire, and Los Angeles shouldn’t be in that position.”

Other departments that received major cuts included the Bureau of Street Services, the Bureau of Sanitation, and General Services, for an overall budget decrease of nearly $250 million. Funds for rental support, homelessness........

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