Joe Eskenazi of our Bay Area sister publication, S.F. Weekly, writes that that city's fire department refuses to honor a state request to send a five-truck strike team to help Southern California battle its fires — even as other northern cities have generously responded to the call from the State Office of Emergency Services. Baghdad by the Bay has managed to send us only one engine, which has the head of San Francisco's firefighters union seeing red.

“Our neighbor's house is burning,” Eskenazi quotes John Hanley, “and we've got well-trained, well-qualified guys but the chief won't let them go.”

Eskenazi explains this is not an isolated incident:

“This isn't the first time San Francisco has denied assistance to its

burning neighbors,” he writes. “Hanley notes that two weeks ago the

city sent only 'two or so' engines to Santa Cruz instead of the

requested full strike team.”

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