Dozens of firefighters, joined by friends and relatives, knocked on doors on the tree-lined streets of Chatsworth on Saturday, urging residents to complain to their council members about budget cuts to the Fire Department.

The Chatsworth community has become key in the firefighters' battle against the rolling service "brownouts" that took effect earlier this month as a result of citywide budget cuts.

In a controversial mailer sent to 100,000 registered voters citywide, firefighters used images of the Metrolink crash that shook the Chatsworth community last year to highlight how cuts could affect a neighborhood during a disaster.

Local politicians, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have railed against the mailer as exploiting a disaster, but on Saturday, several longtime residents rejected that logic.

"It's not an exploitation, it's reality," said Laurie Renno, who has lived in Chatsworth for 40 years and accompanied the firefighters on the walk.

Pat McOsker, head of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said Lightforce 96, the ladder company that was the first team of firefighters that worked to extricate victims from the Metrolink crash, is currently shut down for nine days.

"People have a right to know," McOsker said. "These are the guys who get there first in a disaster ... and right now they are not there."

Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the Chatsworth area, is on vacation but in a written statement he denounced the firefighters' targeting of the Chatsworth community.

"I am very disappointed that the Union that represents our firefighters has engaged in a shameful campaign that exploits one of the worst tragedies that our community has ever experienced, the Chatsworth Metrolink train crash of Sept. 12, 2008," Smith said.

"This tragedy took the lives of 25 people, injured 135 and traumatized our entire City... This is particularly insensitive on the eve of the anniversary of the disaster, as the entire community prepares for the one-year memorial."

Under the current plan, 87 firefighters, out of the 1,100 who are working at any given time, are off-duty and cannot collect overtime. The plan addresses a $39 million shortfall in the LAFD budget.

Residents at the walk Saturday said Smith's comments were not a true reflection of what their neighbors were feeling.

"If those trucks wouldn't have been there, I know we would have lost more lives," said Michele DeGaitano, a 25-year Chatsworth resident.

And others worried about future emergencies in the Chatsworth community, surrounded by mountains and dry brush.

"We are a fire-prone area ... we need our firefighters," said 41-year Chatsworth resident Ellen Kent.