During a new process aimed at increasing the county’s fiscal transparency, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone on Wednesday defended the department’s aerial firefighting capabilities during the destructive Eaton and Palisades fires last month.
At a meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Third District Supervisor Lindsey Horvath asked Marrone if it would improve the department’s ability to more quickly control wildfires by owning the large, water-dropping Super Scooper planes, instead of leasing them. Or owning some and also leasing others.
Questions from the Board of Supervisors were made during Marrone’s defense of his proposed 2025-2026 budget, part of a first-ever expanded budget process mandated by Measure G, a county reform measure passed by voters that requires each of the county’s 38 departments to present separate budget recommendations.
In response to questions from residents about whether the department had enough equipment to tame raging wildfires, Horvath asked about the bright-yellow, fixed-wing planes as well as other issues related to responses to the two devastating fires last month, the Eaton Fire in Altadena and Pasadena, and the Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades and Malibu.
The familiar, water-dropping aircraft are leased by the fire department from Quebec each year to help fend off wildfires.
“We have no plans to change our leasing of the Super Scoopers,” Marrone answered. The department has leased the aircraft for the last 31 years.
“We have the Super Scoopers every year for as long as we need them,” he said. “Leasing them is the most cost-efficient way to get them here.”
The Super Scoopers are capable of scooping up 1,600 gallons of water in 10 to 12 seconds, instantly sucking the water from a lake, reservoir or even the Pacific Ocean. These, as well as large CH-47 Chinook helicopters that lower down to the body of water and suck up water by an extended hose for releasing over the flames, were used in the early hours of the Palisades fire which started in the daytime, he said.
Not having its own Super Scooper planes “did not impact the response to the Palisades fire,” Marrone said. There were 12 fatalities and 6,835 structures destroyed in the Palisades fire.
He said there were other factors that led to widespread destruction in both fires.
When the Eaton fire started just after 6 p.m. on Jan. 7, “the winds were so strong we couldn’t use our planes or helicopters,” he said. “For the first 14 hours of the Eaton fire, we couldn’t fly because it was just too windy and there was an element of darkness.”
With high winds and darkness preventing aircraft from flying, a major tool is left out of the arsenal. Instead, the department was forced to use only firefighters on the ground to fight the wind-whipped fire in those first, critical 14 hours.
There were 17 fatalities from the Eaton fire in Altadena and Pasadena, which destroyed 9,413 structures.
“The Palisades and Eaton fires are the worst natural disasters to strike LA County in modern times,” said county CEO Fesia Davenport.
The L.A. County Fire Department has 5,023 employees, Marrone said. He’s looking to hire more paramedics, firefighters and engineers using money from the newly approved Measure E, passed by voters in November.
Starting in January 2026, the department will get about $152 million annually from Measure E. That money will go toward facilities, staff and equipment, he said.
The department owns 10 helicopters, he said, with nine currently operating. He is asking for about $70 million to buy two new water-dropping helicopters to fight future wildfires.
The department has relied heavily on DC-10 and C-130 aircraft for dropping fire retardant during the January fires, he said.
A big problem is the high rate of staff missing work due to workers compensation claims. He said 399 were off on workers compensation, injury and illness currently. However, he said he always fills the vacancy by paying a firefighter overtime pay, which is time-and-a-half.
He has asked for a $6 million increase in overtime expenditures, part of an overall $1.8 million increase in the recommended 2025-2026 fire budget. The budget totals about $1.7 billion.
“We do have a challenge with workers compensation,” he said, adding he wants to work with the county to reduce that number. Also, by filling vacant slots, he could reduce overtime costs.
Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn referred to reports that the City of Los Angeles’ Fire Department had shortages of fire trucks that sat inoperable in maintenance yards during the January fires. Marrone said his fleet of reserve fire trucks and other vehicles are enough to replace a vehicle taken off the active list for maintenance.
“We have never run into a situation where we were out of apparatus,” he said.
He said the department has not had any decreases in funding. In fact, the department’s budget has increased every year for the past five years, he noted.
The county will continue departmental budget presentations before the board on Feb. 21, Feb. 24, and March 4. In April, the CEO will present a recommended budget, with public hearings in mid-May and budget deliberations in late June. A final budget comes to the board for final approval in late September.