L.A. wildfires shine spotlight on obscure firefighting charity
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- The Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation has raised an eye-opening $20 million over a week.
- For years, the modest nonprofit has quietly worked to provide firefighters with equipment the city budget doesn’t pay for.
- This charity windfall coincides with widespread concerns about an underfunded department that was overwhelmed by wildfires.
It wasn’t long after wildfires erupted across Southern California that donations began pouring into a small office near Dodger Stadium.
Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to give. So did the Dodgers, the Lakers, Netflix and a Las Vegas casino.
The object of their largesse was an obscure nonprofit called the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation which, for the better part of two decades, had quietly helped firefighters by raising funds for equipment — often things as nominal as gloves and flashlights — not covered in the city budget.
After years of averaging less than $3 million a year in donations, the group received about $20 million in a matter of days.
Some residents began to assess the damage to their homes as firefighters appeared to turn a corner in containing the blazes. But officials warned there would be much work to be done.
Money came so fast, in such large chunks, that foundation President Liz Lin could not be sure of the exact total during a recent interview. “Absolutely overwhelming,” she said.
Now she and her staff are working the phones, looking for a supplier who can fill rush orders for hand tools, hydration packs and fire shelters — silvery blankets that protect firefighters overrun by flames. They have received a request for hundreds of headlamps.
“There are just so many things they help with,” Delia Ibarra, former president of the civilian Los Angeles Fire Commission, said of the foundation. “To me, they are gold.”
The fire department’s need for such generosity has become a subject of debate, pitting Mayor Karen Bass against billionaire Elon Musk, drawing the fire chief and other civic leaders into the fray.
As flames scorched thousands of acres in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, there were reports that Bass had cut the fire department’s budget by 2.7% for 2024-25.
In fact, when ongoing negotiations with the firefighters union concluded several months after that budget went into effect, an additional $53 million in salary raises and $58 million for new firetrucks were approved, increasing the operating budget by more than 7% compared with the prior fiscal year, according to city financial analysts.
Regardless, Fire Chief Kristin Crowley complained about not having enough money. Musk and Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong criticized city officials on social media. Lin and her foundation have tried to distance themselves from the controversy.
“We don’t want to get into the political nuances,” she said. “We just ask [the firefighters], ‘What do you need? Give me a cost.’ ”
Her foundation dates back to 2010, when local business owners visited a station house that did not have a washing machine capable of cleaning the toxins from heavy turnout coats. They discovered the vast majority of the department’s budget goes to salaries, leaving a relatively minuscule amount for equipment and specialized training. Individual stations were holding pancake breakfasts to raise money.
Establishing itself as a 501(c)(3) organization, the new group signed an agreement with the city to become a recognized fundraiser and developed a process by which department leadership and stations could apply for help.
Donations totaled about $500,000 annually at first, enough to pay for computer equipment, some of those special washing machines and several thousand flashlights. If a station’s refrigerator broke down and the budget had no money for a new one, the foundation stepped in.
For 75 years, the property has welcomed visitors seeking peace and solace to its grounds. As the Palisades fire raged around it last week, it was anything but.
Firemen often “have to do repairs at the stations themselves,” Ibarra said. “Sometimes they are fixing stuff out of their own pocket because it’s easier than putting in a request [to the city].”
By 2017, the foundation was attracting more than $1 million annually, a figure that would continue to grow. Lin took over from the previous president the following year, just before the Woolsey fire burned nearly 100,000 acres in L.A. and Ventura counties.
“Woolsey was my training camp,” she said. “I had to understand the mechanics, the processes, what happens.”
When a 2020 explosion injured 11 firefighters, the department requested a $277,000 Thermite RS3 robot that could remotely explore engulfed buildings. Two years later, it needed to replace an aging helicopter.
The foundation, which raised almost $6 million that year, spent about half that amount for a new Bell 505. Other gifts have included specialized training courses, mental health services and veterinary care for search-and-rescue dogs.
“It’s a process we never had before,” LAFD spokesperson Margaret Stewart, a 19-year veteran, said. “Those were needs that were not met.”
In the world of charities, where local organizations such as the J. Paul Getty Trust and the California Endowment have assets in the billions, the foundation remains comparatively modest. Its paid staff of five works from a rent-free office at the department’s Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center beside Chavez Ravine.
Charity Navigator, a watchdog organization, gives the group a four-star rating and reports that 93 cents of each $1 contribution goes to firefighters. This matters because a similar L.A. nonprofit devoted to county firefighters recently disbanded after facing allegations it had misused funds.
Ibarra said of the city foundation: “If you give money to them, firefighters are going to get that money.”
Coverage of the Eaton and Palisades fires, including stories about the unprecedented losses, issues firefighters faced and the winds.
Some quick thinking has now greatly expanded the pot. Soon after the Palisades fire broke out, Lin told her staff: “Let’s get something out on social media.” The money came rolling in.
In coming weeks, as the wildfires subside, she will meet with department leaders to discuss future purchases that might better prepare firefighters for the next emergency. Lin said: “When I walked down the hall this morning, leaving the operations center, I had four people stop me and say, ‘Hey, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?’ ”
With a department so large, serving a city so vast, the wish list seems never-ending.
Those heavy-duty washing machines, the ones that started all of this? The foundation has patiently bought a few at a time — in between more-pressing needs — working down the list of 106 stations. Fifteen years later, Lin says, there are 10 more to go.
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