What's new or what's worse, is a huge "human needs" bureaucracy which fails entirely to actually meet those human needs despite soaking up a lot of money.
It varies in scale. Here in Santa Rosa, first responders actually did a good job in dealing with the fire. But in the post-fire situation, the effective emergency that those who lost their homes have at best a small chance to rebuild their lives isn't being dealt with - but then again it's just a more extreme symptom of the housing crisis, which isn't being dealt with 'cause that housing crisis is also a solution to the "how to we maintain financial markets" question.
But there you have a private-public complex everywhere that's taking up a lot of resources without giving backing enough or sometimes anything.
How is it organised in the US? In Australia/Vic while the are volunteer firefighters, they're working with the state organisation and are being put on the same level/block as the career ones in the structure: http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/our-structure/
Where I grew up, there are no professional firefighters; it's all volunteer, just something people did as a hobby, basically. I think they might elect their own chief and officers, or it might be on the public ballot, with the dog catcher and other town positions. Usually, there's nobody on duty at the station, so when a call comes in from the 911 dispatch at county or wherever, their pagers or cellphones go off and they leave work to rush to the station, gear up, and go out.
Usually paid and volunteer firefighters don’t mix well.
Typically you have first responders, and a network of mutual aid for broad scope disasters. During a major disaster, state level emergency management, state police or other get involved.
The level of competence and resources varies between states when it comes time for escalation.
What's new or what's worse, is a huge "human needs" bureaucracy which fails entirely to actually meet those human needs despite soaking up a lot of money.
It varies in scale. Here in Santa Rosa, first responders actually did a good job in dealing with the fire. But in the post-fire situation, the effective emergency that those who lost their homes have at best a small chance to rebuild their lives isn't being dealt with - but then again it's just a more extreme symptom of the housing crisis, which isn't being dealt with 'cause that housing crisis is also a solution to the "how to we maintain financial markets" question.
But there you have a private-public complex everywhere that's taking up a lot of resources without giving backing enough or sometimes anything.