Governor Proposes Realignment of Fire and Emergency Response Activities for CalFire

In an attempt to cut the deficit Governor Brown is proposing a realignment of CalFire SRA perimeters. SRA, State Responsibility Area, currently incorporates 1/3 of the states acreage. “Under statute, the state is responsible for wildland fire protection in state responsibility areas. The state has no statutory obligation to provide structural fire protection or emergency medical response.”

The Legislative Analyst’s Office, LAO, found that based on information compiled from statistics in 2006 that CalFire spent approximately 25% of their incident time on medical response. LAO also noted a sharp increase in expenditures in the years ’06 through ’08, however, the chart did not include the increased revenue from counties that contract with CalFire for fire protection. Some counties that currently contract with CalFire for fire protection include: Riverside County, San Luis Obispo County, Butte County, and Napa County contracts for county areas including several covered by volunteers or combination departments,

The effect that this proposed realignment may have on CFPD is not yet known. Copperopolis Fire Protection District Chief Cantrell states, that all privately owned land within the approximate 225 square miles of the CFPD is SRA.

For further clarification, land that falls within city limits, as in Angels Camp, is not SRA land, all other privately owned land is SRA. There are small amounts of Bureau of Land Management and USACE (US Army Corp of Engineer) lands that fall within the CFPD that are FRA (Federal Responsibility Area) but the remaining is SRA.

While the proposal does include a fiscal impact statement, it also states that the realignment costs would transfer to the local governments without guarantee of a set funding amount. Based on the information LAO has put forth, the per firefighter labor cost for a CalFire firefighter tends to be less expensive than that of local agencies, going on to state that funding would “reflect CalFire’s relatively lower labor rates… local agencies assuming responsibilities under the realignment might either have to hire fewer staff than CalFire to assume these responsibilities or spend additional funding for these purposes beyond the monies they received under realignment.”

According to Larry Crabtree a fire department safety and management consultant, “By reducing the total SRA acres statewide the state would be able to reduce the number of fire stations and fire engines needed to protect those acres.” If Cal Fire boundaries were to be realigned moving outward from the developed areas of Copperopolis those areas / acres would become the responsibility of the LRA (Local Responsibility Area) agency, in this case the CFPD. The realignments costs that transfer to CFPD would be without guarantee of a set funding amount.

By, Charity Maness