The crew that fights wildfires before they start

In Los Angeles, a new kind of fire crew is fighting wildfires long before smoke ever hits the skylineby doing something surprisingly unglamorous: landscaping.

Meet Crew 4, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s first full-time, paid crew focused almost entirely on wildfire prevention. The team was created after the devastating 2025 fire season, which killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes in the area.

• Instead of racing toward flames, Crew 4 spends its days cutting them off at the source.
• Their work involves clearing brush, trimming back trees, and removing dry vegetation from high-risk areas to reduce fuel that can cause small sparks to turn into fast-moving infernos.

It's a different form of firefighting. Armed with chainsaws, hand tools, and wood chippers, Crew 4 takes on dense vegetation packed close to homes, roads, and hillsides. 

• Crew members complete a demanding training academy and train daily to stay ready for steep terrain and extreme conditions.
• The goal is simple: make it harder for fires to spread once they start.

If a wildfire does break out, Crew 4 shifts into response mode, digging fire lines and supporting active firefighting efforts. 

But LAFD leaders say their biggest impact happens long before sirens sound, through the slow, physical work of reshaping the landscape itself.