First responders from Mexico arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Jan. 11, to support firefighting and emergency response efforts that have been underway across LA County since the destructive wildfires began last week.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials were at LAX to greet the 72 firefighters and disaster relief workers from Mexico’s National Forestry Commission and its Ministry of Defense. The military personnel include medical doctors, engineers and search-and-rescue workers, and the forestry specialists include trained firefighters.
As the military aircraft landed at LAX, crew members extended a Mexican flag through the cockpit of the plane, which waved in the air as it taxied its way across the airport tarmac.
“Emergencies have no borders – we are deeply grateful to our neighbors in Mexico for their unwavering support during one of our greatest times of need,” said Newsom in a statement. “Thank you to President Claudia Sheinbaum for lending the best of the best.”
The team from Mexico – staying at a hotel in downtown LA – received training Jan. 12 at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside to help them prepare to battle the Palisades Fire. The next day they began working 12-hour daily shifts assisting as a hand crew in fireline operations, said a representative of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
They are helping build a reinforcement containment line, engaging on the fire directly as needed.
“We are the emergency response battalion … and we are here to help,” said one of the rescue workers, who traveled from their army base in Santa Lucia in the Mexican state of Mexico. “We are here to lend our support to the population and to give them our best effort.”
“We will stay as long as necessary,” said Laura Vázquez Alzúa, head of Mexico’s Civil Protection, shortly after the Mexican firefighters arrived at LAX. “We will support in a spirit of solidarity and with all our experience and commitment to the people of California.”
A Cal Fire representative told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that the team has been “bombarded” with media requests since their arrival, and are no longer granting interviews – based on direct orders from their leadership – to allow them to focus on their assignment.
The group from Mexico has been working alongside approximately 14,000 emergency personnel who are deployed across affected areas of LA, including local firefighters and first responders, as well as other teams from Canada, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho and Colorado. Nearly 1,000 inmate firefighters have also been helping battle the multiple blazes.