California gets help from Mexico and Canada to deal with the L.A. fire emergency

A Mexican soldier was walking on Tuesday afternoon among the ruins of what was once a luxury home in Malibu. The soldier was dressed in a camouflage uniform that blended in with the colors left behind by the fires in Los Angeles, between the rusty color of the scrap metal and the gray of the ashes. This member of a search-and-rescue brigade sent here from Mexico City was combing the mixture of sand and embers with a hoe. She was doing it with such delicacy that it seemed like she was tending a Zen garden, with the Pacific Ocean and the sound of the crashing waves in the background. But the soldier was searching for human remains among the rubble.

“We are entering all the burned properties and those whose structures have been damaged, in case we find someone, which could happen,” said Second Captain Paula Michel Hernández, one of the members of a group of 72 people sent by Mexico to help deal with the disaster caused by a series of fires in L.A. County. Of these, 31 are specialized in the search for remains and have international experience in humanitarian aid missions. The other 41 are firefighters who are helping put out blazes that, one week later, are still threatening the properties of 80,000 evacuees.

Mexican soldiers worked their shift on Tuesday, from 8 a.m. until the last rays of the sun allowed, at around 5 p.m. The coastal area they covered was one of the hardest hit by the Palisades Fire, which destroyed 1,280 structures and damaged another 204. The soldiers worked alongside California Task Force 3, a team from CAL Fire (the state fire department) that also specializes in locating victims.

On Tuesday alone, these groups found the remains of four people. These will be added to the official death count once they are identified by their relatives. So far, the Palisades Fire has officially left nine fatalities. The Eaton Fire, the other large blaze northeast of Los Angeles, caused 16 deaths and consumed 4,600 buildings. Authorities have insisted that the death toll and damage from these two major fires will increase in the coming days.

“We all know about the economic power of the United States, but sometimes we need the help of specialists,” said Lieutenant Colonel Benigno Hernandez, the person in charge of the brigade members working in the area, on Tuesday. Coordination between the teams was fluid. The Mexicans have been participating in joint exercises with the U.S. Army North formation for five consecutive years, and part of the training of these Mexican soldiers has been carried out on U.S. soil.

“Help has no borders. We are proud to be part of this group. Mexico and the United States are united by a border and by the economy. It is not only a neighboring country, it is a sister country,” says Lieutenant Hernández. Many of the members under his command have been on the team for eight to 12 years and have been sent to the site of natural disasters, mainly earthquakes, in Turkey, Chile, Cuba and Iran. Hernández is surprised by the low death toll left by this particular large-scale disaster. “That is the good thing about fire, that there are alerts. Earthquakes do not have that. In Turkey we found entire families under the rubble,” he says.

“¡Viva México!” and “Yes we can” shouted workers in Malibu and Pacific Palisades from their vehicles as they passed near the Mexican rescuers. Hundreds of workers are cleaning the streets, clearing downed cables and poles and preparing for the return of residents at a still-to-be-determined date. The area, along with the eastern neighborhoods of Altadena and Pasadena, remain cordoned off by the National Guard, which prevents people from entering.

“What is this?” asked a soldier, holding a charred artifact in his hand. He found it while removing debris in what looked like might have been a kitchen. “It’s for making coffee,” one of the supervisors told him. Almost nothing was spared from the destruction in this area, long considered a paradise for its mansions and sea views. During lunch, a soldier joked with his colleagues: “I can see myself living here in the future. Or in another life, I think.”

California has relied heavily on neighboring states to deal with what will go down as one of the largest disasters in its history. Firefighters have arrived from Washington, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. Canada mobilized troops from the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.

“It’s not very common for international firefighters to come so far from the border,” said Israel Pinzón, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, the California Fire Department. The agency that heads the emergency response frequently carries out binational work with Mexican teams on the border between Mexico and the United States. But given the magnitude of this disaster, they did not hesitate to accept help from trained hands. “We speak the same language, that of rescue,” says Pinzón, who admits that everything seems to indicate that in the future international collaboration will be necessary to deal with increasingly destructive fires.

Canadian aid was not limited to manpower. The nation has also sent equipment to reinforce the small army that has been working on several fronts for more than a week. More than 15,000 firefighters, 1,400 trucks and 83 aircraft are responding to the emergency. Four aircraft have been loaned by the province of Quebec, which has had a contract with California for 30 years to rent aircraft during the fall to fight fires.

One of these CL-415 models, an amphibious craft capable of dropping 5,600 liters of water on burning areas, was grounded for five days after colliding with a drone flown by a civilian over the disaster area to record images. Local authorities have threatened to press charges against those who fly these devices within the perimeter of the emergency, something prohibited by the air regulator. The FBI in Los Angeles has joined the investigation to find the pilot of the drone that crashed. The hole in the wing caused by the collision has already been fixed and the Super Scooper, as the plane is known, took flight again on Tuesday.

The aid from Mexico and Canada to California, a state of 40 million people, shows that bitter diplomatic recriminations sometimes fail to resonate on the ground. The leaders of these nations, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the outgoing Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have traded accusations with Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Monday. But Sheinbaum and Trudeau have not shied away from sending aid, unlike the Republican president, who has floated the idea that any federal resources transferred to the progressive bastion should be conditional. The idea has been backed by other high-profile politicians from the right-wing party.

Other U.S. allies have offered a helping hand in the crisis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that 150 firefighters from his country were ready to travel to California for “possible participation” in the firefighting effort. The California National Guard called the offer “little short of extraordinary.”

Offers have even come from nations that are hostile to Washington. Iran’s Red Crescent announced over the weekend that it was ready to send rapid response teams to stop the fire. The announcement was made by a spokesman for the president of the Islamic republic, Masoud Pezeshkian. Hardline Islamist media outlets have claimed that the destruction in Los Angeles was a consequence of divine wrath caused by the United States’ support for Israel in its war against Hamas. The Iranian offer was rejected by the government of California, which told Pezeshkian’s regime that it preferred financial aid in the form of donations to the Red Cross. Japan has followed this suggestion and has allocated $2 million to help those affected by the tragedy.

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