SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Cal Fire says it's reached a staffing number sufficient to what it needs for fighting wildfires in California after years of staffing shortages.
The organization reported figures showing it gained at least 2,000 additional personnel over the last five years, totaling 10,200 and hitting peak staffing levels for this fire season.
Earlier this year, Gov. Newsom unveiled in his 2022-23 state budget proposal funds would be allocated to take on existential threats like wildfire response to strengthen resources for organizations like Cal Fire.
“We were very fortunate to be the recipient of the new budget and in that new budget is additional staffing for our overall mission,” Cal Fire Chief Jon Heggie said. “So the good thing is that adds a lot of positions, particularly about 1,502 positions statewide for various -- either firefighting or support -- roles, which really bolsters our ability to fight fires up and down the state and provide a level of service that California expects.”
The state allocated an estimated $400 million to wildfire protection to help firefighters take on the historically large workload.
“We are looking very good staffing wise as far as it comes to the appropriate response to what we've been seeing over the last few years,” Heggie said.
Some of the largest wildfires in history have been seen in the last few years, creating heavier workloads for departments and issues with firefighter staffing across the state.
“What we have in this year's budget is an ideal number,” Heggie said. “The bolstering of that 1,502 ... up and down the state in both support and fire suppression positions really gives us the ability to not only surge, but also give our people time off that is well needed during the summer times.”
According to Chief Heggie, there is now a sufficient amount of fire personnel to allow for reasonable shift changes and not overworking crews during peak fire season.
“Under normal circumstances, people will go and work a 24-hour shift on a fire and then they'll have 24 hours of downtime to recuperate,” Heggie said.
But despite the abundance of personnel, the unpredictable nature of wildfires can sometimes cause a need for firefighters to work overtime.
“Under certain circumstances, especially in that first day of a fire that's escalating, there may be periods where people work past that 24 hours,” Heggie said. “But we make a concerted effort to ensure that we get those people off as soon as we possibly can depending on how quickly we can get resources in there to relieve them.”
According to Cal Fire, there is no limit to how many fires a person can go to. Typically there is a 14-21 day maximum a firefighter will be able to work in a month around required rest days.
These numbers can be adjusted in the case of extreme fire activity, but Cal Fire hasn't had that problem yet this year.
“We've been fortunate this year that we have had a handful of large fires, but nothing in the sense that we've had challenges staffing those fires,” Heggie said.
He said although there are quite a few new firefighters that have joined the team, this has and will not compromise the quality of Cal Fire’s work.
“Right now, I think we have a good mix of tenured employees and new employees, which gives us the balance of experience and then also the balance of new people filling into roles that they will need to do in the future,” Heggie said. “There's a good mentor program within our department with people with experience showing and leading the new era of firefighters throughout California."
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