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 The National Guard Supports California Wildfire Response By National Guard Bureau
 WASHINGTON - Commitments to the Global War on Terrorism have not shortchanged the National Guard's ability to support this week's massive wildfire-fighting mission in Southern California, the chief of the National Guard Bureau told reporters at the Pentagon on Oct. 23. Although 3,000 California Citizen-Soldiers are now deployed overseas, "we were very, very careful not to take capabilities away from the state of California that might be useful in fighting [wildfires]," LTG H Steven Blum said during a media briefing hosted by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Oct. 22 directed that 1,500 National Guard troops be made available to support the efforts to fight the wildfires which have scorched more than 600 square miles and forced a half million people to flee their homes between Los Angeles and the Mexican border. "I can tell you unequivocally that the ongoing warfighting activities have had no negative effect at all with regard to our ability to provide sufficient forces to assist civilian authorities in fighting the wildfires," McHale said. "So far, the greater number of military personnel who have been committed to the wildfire-fighting activities have come out of the National Guard. There are more than 1,500 National Guardsmen who have been brought to state active duty  to provide a response," he added. "The 3,000 Soldiers that are not in California, that are deployed overseas, today  were carefully selected knowing that they would be away during the firefighting season," Blum explained. "We left  17,000 plus another 300 on the soil of California to respond to Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger. We left the capabilities that we thought would be essential to fight [wildfires] available to him," Blum added. "And then we mitigated any shortages or any risk by mutual compacts between the states. Oregon and Nevada in particular are standing ready to come in with additional aviation rotary-wing helicopters resources if they should be required. "[This has] been probably the most proactive response to a domestic event that I have seen in my 40 years in uniform, and we continue to be flexible and agile to meet the needs of Gov. Schwarzenegger and the citizens of California as they're ravaged by what is a very dangerous and unpredictable fire," Blum said. "Frankly the Guard is leaning forward in this, closely coordinated at the state and national level with all of the Department of Defense entities that [respond] to a domestic event," Blum added. "Northern Command at Colorado Springs is very knowledgeable of everything that we have anticipated doing, and executed in advance, kind of anticipating the need before we were asked." Finally, Blum said that people often forget that the Air National Guard has significant response capabilities. "In this particular case, they have the C-130 tankers that have the mobile airborne firefighting units that basically are an insert that slides up into the fuselage of the C-130," he said "And it allows us to dispense that orange-colored flame retardant fire material or it can drop water in certain circumstances where flame retardant is deemed to be inappropriate or dangerous."
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