California would hire more than 1,000 more firefighters under state senator’s proposal

A Northern California state senator plans to introduce legislation that would add 356 permanent firefighters and 768 seasonal firefighters to the state’s force.

Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said Friday that the legislation would set new per-engine minimums at Cal Fire and would launch a staffing study to help prepare the department for fire conditions that are projected to keep getting worse in the years ahead.

At a cost of $214 million, McGuire called the proposal a “critical first investment.”

“This is a down payment,” he said. “More is needed.”

McGuire announced the proposal Friday morning on the north steps of the state Capitol, flanked by a few dozen firefighters wearing black t-shirts identifying their union, Cal Fire Local 2881.

The senator and union leaders said firefighters often spend 40 days or more deployed at fires, harming mental health and impacting families while driving up state overtime costs. More employees would reduce mandated overtime, said Local 2881 president Tim Edwards.

“The more relief they get, the less mental stress they have,” Edwards said.

Cal Fire has about 5,200 employees categorized as safety employees, including permanent firefighters, spokeswoman Alisha Herring said. Each year the department adds about 2,300 seasonal employees to that number, Herring said. The department has a budget of about $2.9 billion.

Fire seasons in California have been getting longer and worse, and climate change is expected to increase the likelihood and size of fires, according to a recent study led by a University of California, Irvine researcher and published in the journal Science Advances.

In the three decades ending in 2016, California fires grew to more than a million acres in only three years, according to Cal Fire data. Yet in the last five years, burns have averaged about 1.5 million acres. About 4.2 million acres burned in 2020 and 2.6 million burned this year, according to the data.

McGuire’s proposal would set a minimum of three firefighters per engine at Cal Fire and order a yearlong study looking at how changing fire conditions might impact staffing needs, he said.

This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California would hire more than 1,000 more firefighters under state senator’s proposal."