State Sen. Mike McGuire announces legislation to boost Cal Fire’s ranks, launch staffing study

Bipartisan legislation to dramatically increase California’s wildland firefighting force and provide quicker responses to blazes before they get out of hand will be introduced in January.

The bill calls for the state to spend up to $214 million for the immediate hiring of 1,124 firefighters, including 356 full-time firefighters and 768 seasonal hand-crew personnel to beef up frontline ranks during fire season.

State Sen. Mike McGuire announced the bipartisan legislation Friday outside the state Capitol, where he was joined by about three dozen Cal Fire firefighters, as well as two of the bill’s co-authors, Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, and Brian Dahle, R-Bieber.

Another of the bill’s features would require Cal Fire engines to be staffed by a minimum of three firefighters, a strategy that would help the agency advance quick attacks on new fire starts before they erupt into larger blazes, McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said.

Currently, Cal Fire fire engines are staffed by an average of 2.7 firefighters, levels that fall behind many municipal departments throughout the state, McGuire said.

The $214 million would cover the cost of annual salary and benefits for full-time and seasonal workers, with no sunset included in the legislation. The bill calls for a staffing study of the agency with a deadline that it be sent to the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom within a year of the bill’s signing.

Together, those pieces would help remedy the state’s Cal Fire staffing shortage, caused in part by a decrease in inmate firefighter crews in recent years. The thinner staffing has led to firefighters working for weeks at a time without days off while battling some of the largest and most destructive fires in the state’s history, McGuire said.

“Cal Fire firefighters have dedicated their lives to keep us safe,” McGuire said. “Now we as a state need to step up and keep them safe.”

Cal Fire operates the world’s largest standing firefighting force, including ground and air resources and about 6,100 full-time personnel as of September 2018. Each year, the ranks of seasonal firefighters, local volunteers and inmate firefighters swell that roster by thousands.

Inmate firefighters are making up a small portion of those ranks in recent years, however, McGuire said. In February 2020, there were 1,426 inmate firefighters in Cal Fire camps, down 8% compared to the year prior, he said. That number is only a third of the 4,200 inmate firefighters reported by the state’s firefighting agency a decade ago, McGuire said.

A staffing study would help Cal Fire better gauge how many firefighters and administrative personnel it need for the long-term based on “the conditions that we’re seeing on the ground,” he added.

Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Lynda Hopkins said she was supportive of McGuire’s plan. She has heard from local firefighters about the mental and physical toll recent catastrophic fires have taken on them.

“It used to be that any one of these wildfires would be a career fire, meaning that you would have one wildfire of that magnitude in your whole career,” Hopkins said. “Now those career wildfires are happening every year, and setting new records every year.”

Cal Fire staffing was a crucial component of those firefighting efforts, she said, rushing equipment and crews from far flung districts across the state.

A funding surge for Cal Fire could also bolster fire prevention, including brush clearance and prescribed fire work, something Hopkins saw as a benefit.

Among the speakers during Friday’s news conference was San Diego Cal Fire Captain Angel Hendrie, a firefighter with 26-years of experience who spoke about the toll of long periods on the fire line has had on her and her family, including 15-year-old twins and her husband, who is also a firefighter.

Hendrie described missing out on important life events, as well as experiencing emotional breakdowns every fire season from exhaustion.

Others around her have also been impacted by the increasing demands of the job, among them a coworker who was her partner for there years, and who committed suicide in 2017 after getting off his shift, Hendrie said.

“Being stuck on duty for long periods of time took a toll on his marriage and mental health,” Hendrie said. “Firefighters from Cal Fire on the front line support Sen. McGuire and his colleagues in this endeavor.”

McGuire said the legislation was needed even in the wake of significant state investments to curb massive blazes and add firefighters. They include the approval of almost $1 billion in September for wildfire prevention in the 2021-2022 fiscal year, as well as at least $200 million annually for the next six years.

In September, the governor’s office announced $138 million in fire prevention grants, supported in part by $14.8 million from Cal Fire’s budget. The total sum was being directed to 105 fire prevention projects across the state.

“It’s simply not enough,” McGuire said in an interview after Friday’s news conference. “There are not enough California firefighters to keep up with the growing demand we’re seeing each and every year.”

Other co-authors of the legislation are Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Malibu Sen. Henry Stern, also a Democrat.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.