LAT’s are great, but budgetary and political pressures automatically mean that in return for a Federally funded “squadron” of LAT’s, the States will be required to give up local operational control as well as contributing to the budget. This will inevitably come at the cost of local, small and flexible air assets because that’s the way the Commonwealth works. They will preach centralization and economy of scale — which means inflexibility and slow response.
To put that another way, I’d be concerned that such a squadron would be “instead of” not “in addition to” because that’s the way effing bean counters think.
As for modeling fire fighting structure and numbers on Police experience, that’s flatly wrong because you need far more firefighters very quickly. I was out at 2.00 am on new year’s eve putting out a monster campfire and dealing with ten very drunk and unpleasant revellers . The nearest police were at least an hour away - we called them, but cancelled when they told us the response time.