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After the Palisades fire broke out in January, the head of the powerful firefighters union, Freddy Escobar, quickly got on the news and continued to say what he always had: The Los Angeles Fire Department was underfunded.

With millions around the world paying attention to the dire situation in Los Angeles, Escobar had a much larger audience than the month before, when he made the same points at a meeting before the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners.

“The fire chief does not have the money to staff the resources that are needed,” Escobar told The Times on Jan. 10, three days after the fires started burning. “Unfortunately, everything was lined up to have a disaster.”

But Escobar s

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