General Discussion

1. Combat Arms units - Infantry, Field Artillery, Air Defense Artillery, Armor and Cavalry. They won't have many people to shoot at, but they're tougher than boiled owls, have impressive stamina, and will have no problem whatsoever swinging a pulaski or wielding a shovel to put out fires.

2. Combat Engineer units - these units come with earthmoving equipment and dump trucks.

3. Aviation units - leave the Apaches at home, but the UH-60, UH-72 and CH-47 units will be of great use.

4. Military Intelligence units - image interpreters will be able to analyze overhead of the fireground to tell firefighters where to go, and human intelligence assets can deal with refugees in a humane manner. In Southern California many languages are spoken, and the MI Corps has soldiers trained to speak all the world's languages. (I suspect the Army's first response here will be to send every student at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA, into the fire zone.)

5. Signal Corps units - considering that many of the cell towers people rely on are gone, the Signal Corps' heavy multichannel and long-range troposcatter systems will enable first responders to communicate.

6. Transportation Corps units - you NEVER have enough trucks in an emergency. They have plenty.

7. Maintenance units - goes without saying.

8. Service and Supply units - no one does logistics better than the Army.

9. Petroleum supply units - in the Army you don't go to the gas station, the gas station comes to you. They have 5000-gallon fuel tankers that can bring fuel right to the firefighters.

10. Unmanned Aerial Systems - the military has a wide selection of UAS all carrying cameras and real-time downlinks.

11. Military Police units - the Posse Comitatus Act says Military Police cannot enforce laws in the civilian sector. The Posse Comitatus Act does NOT say MPs can't direct traffic, and they're great at it.

12. Water Purification units - with the Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units these guys have they can turn raw sewage or seawater into drinkable water all the day long.

13. Laundry and Bath units - this isn't a critical-to-survival thing, but hot showers do a lot toward building morale.

The very first unit they should send in is the 1st Marine Division. 1 MARDIV's advantage is they are Right There - Camp Pendleton is the closest base with a ground combat unit to Los Angeles. That unit, and the recruits from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, can be battling the blazes before they can get the two closest Army divisions, which are at Fort Carson, CO, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, to Los Angeles. There are also several Navy bases in California, and all sailors are trained to fight fire.