Under Newsom, far-left general deactivated firefighting disaster response team

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A high-ranking military appointee of California Gov. Gavin Newsom diminished the state’s emergency response volunteer firefighting units, according to Maj. Gen. Jay Coggan, retired commanding general of the California State Guard.

California is now struggling to contain destructive wildfires, which have killed 25 people and displaced more than 80,000 in the Los Angeles area.

Newsom appointed Matthew Beevers to serve as adjutant general of the California Military Department in May 2023. Beevers has a history of marching in LGBTQ pride parades and was investigated for alleged antisemitism against a subordinate, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Beevers denied making the antisemitic comment.

Shortly after his appointment, Beevers decommissioned the Emergency Response Command, a highly trained joint command consisting of two volunteer units, according to Coggan.

Prior to Beevers’ decision, Emergency Response Command included Team Blaze, a firefighting detachment, and Team Shield, a security forces detachment that worked with Team Blaze on firefighting missions. Coggan, the retired commanding general of the California State Guard, started the command in February 2021.

Team Blaze and Team Shield were part of the State Guard, a military reserve force of volunteers that supports the California National Guard. The units were largely made of police officers, retired police chief, retired firefighters, and California highway patrol officers.

Beevers’ decision eliminated Team Blaze’s autonomy, and it was slashed in size and moved under National Guard unit Task Force Rattlesnake.

“The California State Guard was fully operational,” a senior enlisted leader who asked to remain anonymous told The Daily Signal. “Between the boats, the fire team [Team Blaze], [Team] Shield, we were able to work organically and move as a unit and be operational. And what Beevers did was cut out every piece of it that was operational and made it a support.”

The California Military Department did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.

Beevers returned Team Blaze’s five fire engines, which were made to respond to wildfires, to the state’s Office of Emergency Services, which loaned the trucks to Team Blaze free of charge, Coggan said. The unit’s members had two years of training and certification to be able to operate the wildland engines.

The Office of Emergency Services did not respond to The Daily Signal’s comment request.

Members of Team Shield, many of whom were sworn or formerly sworn police officers with training in municipal law enforcement, were told to find other forces to serve.

In a scenario like the 2025 wildfires, Team Shield could have helped with traffic control and security operations during evacuations. Instead, the roads were clogged with traffic during the Palisades Fire evacuation, and police officers told drivers to abandon their cars and run to safety.

“Team Shield was capable of taking on traffic control points, doing enforcement, protecting critical infrastructure,” the senior leader said, “and when they removed that asset from the California Military Department, there was nothing to backfill it.”

Team Blaze could have joined Los Angeles fire-fighters in putting out the flames that destroyed more than 140,000 acres and took at least 25 lives.

Californians are now facing the consequences of Beevers’ decision.

The senior enlisted leader told The Daily Signal that the California Professional Firefighters Union complained to Cal Fire that it didn’t want “nonprofessional firefighters” on their fires. According to the enlisted leader, Cal Fire put pressure on Beevers, who caved because Taskforce Rattlesnake, a large program run by the California Military Department, is funded by Cal Fire.

California Professional Firefighters Union and Cal Fire did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.

“In reality, these people don’t want their jobs,” Coggan, the retired commanding general of the California State Guard, told The Daily Signal of the volunteer firefighters. “They’re just filling it during the gap.”

Being the state’s defense force, the California State Guard is the “governor’s army,” the senior leader said.

“Beevers removed the governor’s army in secret,” the leader said, “behind closed doors, and never replaced that resource with anything.”

Beevers is known to have a distaste for the State Guard, Coggan said. Under Beevers, the State Guard uniform changed so it no longer looks like the National Guard.

“They changed our command structure,” the leader said. “They took whole commands out of the [California State Guard]. They removed a lot of senior positions. They made policy that no CSG commander could be the same rank or outrank the National Guard counterpart. In every way possible, they made us less than.”

The lack of appreciation is causing the State Guard to lose enlisted members because they don’t feel welcomed, according to the enlisted leader.

“The CSG was doing civil response, emergency response, better than the National Guard,” the leader said, “and it rubbed Beevers the wrong way.”

California’s elected leaders, all of whom are Democrats, have been under scrutiny for their failure to mitigate the damage caused by the wildfires, which started on Jan. 7.

Four days before the fires started, on Jan. 3, the National Weather Service issued a warning of a “life-threatening, destructive, widespread windstorm.” Despite this guidance, Southern California was ill-prepared for the fires.

“When the history of these fires are written, people will conclude that it was 25% the weather and 75% incompetence and poor management,” former California Rep. Mike Gatto, a Democrat, told The Daily Signal.

Prior to his current role, Beevers embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

At the San Francisco pride parade June 30, 2021, then-Deputy Adjutant Gen. Beevers said: “The reason we’re here is to ensure that everybody knows folks in the California Military Department, California National Guard, we’re all about inclusion, about ensuring that everybody wants to serve (can serve), because when we’re representative of our entire population, we’re more ready, we’re more lethal.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]