With Southern California still in a thick, extremely brutal winter fire season, lawmakers are hoping to extend most of staffing and operations to the state’s largest fire service all year round instead of adopting a seasonal schedule. I’m looking for it.
This week, a bipartisan group of California lawmakers announced a law that would transfer around 3,000 seasonal firefighters who work year-round with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. The law also ensures that fire trucks, helicopters and vegetation management crews work each month.
“More aggressive fires and the relentless wildfire season of the year require more aggressive response,” Sonoma County Democrat Sen. Mike McGuire said in a statement. “Wildfires will not be closed for three months. …This investment will make the community safer and significantly improve fires and emergency response in every corner of California.”
According to the McGuire office, the transition to full-time staffing costs the state an estimated $175 million each year. It was not immediately clear where those dollars would come from.
Cal Fire currently excludes some of the lowest ranking firefighters during the winter after nine months of working, but can be called back in case of emergency. Cal firefighters usually work between April and December.
However, in recent years, California firefighters continue to warn that California has not won a fire season, but instead has a year-round threat as human-focused climate change worsens. It has been known to have strengthened the fire and exploded. Researchers at UC Irvine found that climate change and increased development extended the historic fire season.
“January highlighted the new reality of climate change: it calls for full preparation for climate-driven disasters all year round and enacts laws on rising staffing levels.” “Firemen have experienced these shortages firsthand and need additional personnel to effectively respond to disasters wherever they are happening.”
The bill has not yet been officially introduced, but McGuire said it would be called the Fight for Direfighters Act. Lawmakers announced that fires are usually one of the slowest months, just weeks after two catastrophic fires in January destroyed parts of Los Angeles County. Cal Fire spokesperson Jesse Torres said the agency was forced to call firefighters who were laid off in January, February and March to respond to major fires. He said that.
We are “in a few months that we didn’t expect, and we’ve been experiencing a more devastating fire,” Torres said. He said when he first started with Cal Fire in the late 1990s, he had a seasonal shift from June to November. Currently, seasonal firefighter staff is running from April to December and is not enough, he said.
Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a similar bill, not because he disagreed with the goal, but because he said the state plans to hire 2,000 new full-time firefighters already working for a new short union. I did.
But lawmakers say Cal Fire crews deserve a stable job that not only improves state fire preparations, but also improves firefighters’ mental health and working conditions. A 2022 Calmatters survey revealed a deterioration in mental health among firefighters at the agency. He said he is struggling to recover from tough shifts and trauma from the frontline.
“From fighting wildfires to responding to emergency calls, we have Cal brave men and women who fire our best gratitude debt,” said minority leader Brian Jones (R-san Diego) said in a statement. “There’s far more work to do, but this bill is an important first step towards giving firefighters the job stability and support they need.”
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