PD Editorial: Pick up the pace on fire plan

On Tuesday, the state fire map showed seven active wildfires dotted across Northern California, plus two more still burning inside containment lines.

The details are sobering:

Dozens of homes burned and 1,500 people displaced in Weed, near the Oregon border.

A fire in the rugged Sierra foothills grew overnight to more than 11,500 acres.

Flames destroyed 33 homes and hundreds more were threatened in Madera County, near Yosemite National Park.

Closer to home, residents of Redwood Valley cleaned up after a fire that scorched 400 acres and destroyed three homes over the weekend.

The state is experiencing a difficult fire season, which isn’t surprising in the third and most severe year of a drought. But the drought isn’t a complete explanation. Wildfires are a perennial threat in California, and there’s evidence that the size and duration of fires have grown over the past 30 years.

So fire protection is more important than ever.

Yet in many places resources are stretched to the breaking point. That’s especially true in rural communities that rely on small fire districts and volunteer fire companies.

Across the country, the ranks of volunteers are down 11 percent since the mid-1980s, according to the National Fire Protection Association. The cost of equipment and training has increased, as has the volume of calls, especially calls for medical aid. Property taxes, the primary funding source for many rural fire departments, hasn’t kept pace.

Sonoma County has witnessed these trends. Indeed, officials have undertaken studies and generated reports on the subject dating back to at least 1983. Some fire agencies have consolidated, some have secured voter approval for special taxes. Most have struggled to balance their books.

Another shakeout seems likely, with several north county fire districts discussing consolidation, Rincon Valley firefighters seeking a merger with Santa Rosa’s department, consideration of a new fire district in the Sea Ranch area and a possible 11,000-acre annexation by the Schell-Vista Fire Protection District. Each of these would have ripple effects on the finances and operations of other fire agencies.

What’s missing, we wrote in April, is any look at the big picture.

That may come from an assessment outlined last week for Sonoma County supervisors. The goal, as Staff Writer Angela Hart reported on Sunday, is to use data such as response times, types of service calls and a detailed accounting of the money now being spent responding to develop a strategy for equitably delivering emergency services to Sonoma County residents.

A by-the-numbers approach makes good sense, especially considering that the county has 39 separate fire agencies - 15 volunteer companies, 19 independent districts and five municipal fire departments - that will want a say in any reorganization.

Unfortunately, the timeline for the county’s latest assessment is two to three years.

We would like to see the supervisors and the county administrator sharpen their pencils and find a way to speed up the collection of data and input from residents and fire districts. The alarm has been ringing for years.