Proposal seeks to boost Cal Fire staffing as state braces for long fire season
SACRAMENTO – With California likely facing a long fire season this year, the push for additional firefighters is already underway in Sacramento.
According to State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), Cal Fire is understaffed and has a retention problem. McGuire has introduced a bill in the legislature to hire more than 1,000 additional Cal Fire firefighters to staff engines and hand crews.
The proposal comes as dozens of Cal Fire resources were deployed near Napa on the Old Fire, which as of Tuesday night was 570 acres and 5% contained.
Tim Edwards, the president of the Cal Fire Local 2881 union, said the crews were able to make an aggressive attack on it because there aren't any other major fires burning right now, but if it would have started later in the season, crews could have been stretched thin. Edwards said it's critical to increase staffing and the state budget for Cal Fire to hire and retain more firefighters.
Tom Bird, a resident who was evacuated from his home due to the Old Fire, says he appreciates all the effort from the Cal Fire crews.
"It's so hot and dry up here that it spread real quick," Bird told KPIX 5.
Bird has vineyards along the hillside scorched by the Old Fire that started late Tuesday afternoon - the same hillside burned by the Atlas Fire which caused so much damage in Santa Rosa in 2017.
This area is just off Silverado Trail, not far from Yountville, in the heart of Napa's wine country.
"The men and women of Cal Fire working really hard up here, keeping us real safe up here," said Bird.
According to the union, they already have a crew shortage and the fire season is just starting.
"We've been under-staffed for multiple years. We have less staff today than we had in 1974," Edwards said.
"Now we're having hundreds of thousands of acres every year, multiple times a year, and there's just not enough resources to go around and Cal Fire being understaffed just highlighted that," the union president went on to say.
About 350 of those proposed new firefighters would work on engines. The others would be hand-crews, replacements for the inmate crews that were eliminated during COVID.