The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is the
fire department
A fire department (American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in th ...
of the
California Natural Resources Agency in the
U.S. state of
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
. It is responsible for fire protection in various areas under state responsibility totaling 31 million acres, as well as the administration of the state's private and public
forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
s. In addition, the department provides varied emergency services in 36 of the state's 58 counties via contracts with local governments. The department's current director is Joe Tyler, who was appointed March 4, 2022, by
Governor of California
The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.
Established in the Constitution of California, t ...
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fro ...
.
Operations
CAL FIRE's foremost operational role is to fight and prevent wildfire on 31 million acres of state forestland. The organization works in both suppression and prevention capacities on state land, and offers emergency services of various kinds in 36 out of California's 58 counties, through contracts with local governments. The organization also assists in response to a wide range of disasters and incidents, including earthquakes, water rescues, and hazardous material spills. The organization manages eight Demonstration State Forests for timber production, recreation, and research.
In conjunction with the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, CAL FIRE uses thousands of incarcerated firefighters at 44
conservation camps throughout the state on fire prevention, fire suppression, and various maintenance and conservation projects. CAL FIRE works with employees of the
California Conservation Corps since that agency's creation in a partnership for fire suppression duties, logistics and forestry management. CCC corpsmembers are involved in job training programs as Type 1 Hand Crew firefighters, supervised by CAL FIRE personnel, in increasing prevalence to offset CDCR inmates as the incarcerated firefighter program is closed. Programs to control wood boring insects and diseases of trees are under forestry programs managed by CAL FIRE. The vehicle fleet is managed from an office in
Davis, California
Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...
.
[''State of California 1998 Telephone Directory'', (Sacramento: State of California, Department of General Services).]
Organizational structure
The largest and most visible part of CAL FIRE operations is fire protection. Operations are divided into 21 operational units, which geographically follow county lines. Each unit consists of the area of one or more counties. Operational units are grouped under either the North Region or South Region.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) is the CAL FIRE program that protects life and property through the development and application of fire prevention, engineering, training and education, and enforcement. As part of this mission, OSFM establishes a fire-safe environment for the people of California, which serves as a foundation for local agencies to build on as they strive to meet their specific goals.
There are two CAL FIRE training centers. The original academy is the CAL FIRE Training Center in
Ione Ione may refer to:
Places
* Ione, California, a city
* Ione, Colorado, an unincorporated community
* Ione, Nevada, an unincorporated community
* Ione, Oregon, a city
* Ione, Washington, a town
* Ionopolis or Ione, an ancient town near Antioch
...
, east of Sacramento. The second academy is at the Ben Clark Training Center in
Riverside. Both centers host the Fire Fighter Academy (FFA). All CAL FIRE Fire Protection employees go through this academy once they become permanent employees. The Company Officer Academy (COA) is only held in Ione. All new company officers (Engineer, Captain, Forester I, etc.) attend this academy.
Rank structure
Leadership
The uniformed executive staff of CAL FIRE includes the following individuals.
* Director: Joe Taylor
* Chief Deputy Director: Chris Anthony
* State Fire Marshal: Mike Richwine
* Assistant State Fire Marshal: Wendy Collins
* Deputy Director, Fire Protection: Curtis Brown
* Deputy Director, Resource Management: Matthew Reischman
* Deputy Director of Cooperative Fire Protection: Gabrielle Avina
* Deputy Director, Communications (Acting): Nick Schuler
* Southern Region Chief: Dave Fulcher
* Northern Region Chief: George Morris III
Pay
As of 2017,
median pay for full time firefighters (which includes base pay, special pay, overtime and benefits) is $148,000.
Representation
Firefighters employed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are represented by IAFF affiliate, CAL FIRE Local 2881, which represents 5,700 members within CAL FIRE Local 2881 and is also associated with the California Professional Firefighters (CPF) and the
International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).
Operational units
Operational units are organizations designed to address fire suppression over a geographic area. They vary widely in size and
terrain
Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin w ...
.
For example, Lassen-Modoc-Plumas Operational Unit encompasses three
rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
counties
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
and consists of eight fire stations, one Helitack Base, three conservation camps and an inmate firefighter training center. Fire suppression resources include 13 front-line fire engines, 1 helicopter, 3 bulldozers and 14 inmate fire crews. The unit shares an interagency emergency command center with federal agencies including the
US Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
,
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...
, and the
Bureau of Land Management. An interagency center contributes to economies of scale, supports cooperation, and lends itself to a more seamless operation. The area has fragmented jurisdictions across a large rural area along the
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
and
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
state lines.
Riverside Operational Unit by itself is one of the largest fire departments in the nation, with 95 fire stations and about 230 pieces of equipment. The Riverside Operational Unit operates the
Riverside County Fire Department
Riverside may refer to:
Places Australia
* Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania
Canada
* Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon
* Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta
* Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural m ...
under contract as well operates eighteen city fire departments and one community services district fire department. Nine of these stations belong to the state, with rest owned by the respective local government entity. The unit operates its own emergency command center in
Perris. Terrain served includes
urban and
suburban areas of the
Inland Empire and communities in the metropolitan
Palm Springs
Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by lan ...
area. The area includes forested mountains, the
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...
basin, the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily i ...
and
Interstate 10
Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally ...
.
The counties of Marin (MRN), Kern (KRN), Santa Barbara (SBC), Ventura (VNC), Los Angeles (LAC) and Orange (ORC) are paid by CAL FIRE to provide fire protection to state responsibility areas within those counties rather than CAL FIRE providing direct fire protection, and are commonly known as the "Contract Counties".
Lawmakers in Sacramento have mandated that every operational unit develop and implement an annual fire management plan. The plan will develop cooperation and community programs to reduce damage from, and costs of, fires in California. One metric used by fire suppression units is ''initial attack success: ''fires stopped by the initial resources, (equipment and people,) sent to the incident.
Northern Region units and identifiers
*Amador-El Dorado Unit – AEU / 2700 (Including Sacramento and Alpine Counties)
*Butte Unit – BTU / 2100
*Humboldt-Del Norte Unit – HUU / 1200
*Lassen-Modoc-Plumas Unit – LMU / 2200 (Including Plumas County as of June 2008)
*Mendocino Unit – MEU / 1100
*Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit – NEU / 2300 (Including Sutter and Sierra Counties)
*San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit – CZU / 1700
*Santa Clara Unit – SCU / 1600 (including Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and parts of San Joaquin, and Stanislaus Counties)
*Shasta-Trinity Unit – SHU / 2400
*Siskiyou Unit – SKU / 2600
*Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit – LNU / 1400 (including: Solano, Yolo, Colusa Counties)
*Tehama-Glenn Unit – TGU / 2500
Southern Region units and identifiers
*Fresno-Kings Unit – FKU / 4300
*Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit – MMU / 4200
*Riverside Unit -RRU / 3100
*San Benito-Monterey Unit – BEU/ 4600
*San Bernardino Unit – BDU / 3500 (Including Inyo and Mono Counties)
*San Diego Unit -MVU / 3300 (Including Imperial County)
*San Luis Obispo Unit – SLU / 3400
*Tulare Unit – TUU / 4100
*Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit – TCU / 4400 (Including portions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Alpine counties)
Equipment
Apparatus
CAL FIRE uses various apparatus to accomplish their daily responses. Engines fall under two categories, either being state-owned — mostly wildland, or city/county owned, which CAL FIRE operates under contract.
For the wildland portion, most engines are manufactured with West-Mark or Westates (now American Truck & Fire Apparatus) bodies on an
International chassis. Commonly seen models of wildland engines include the Model 14, and 15. CAL FIRE Models 24 and 25 were test-bed models, with only a few of each model fielded. The newest versions of these engines are CAL FIRE model 34 (4WD) and 35 (2WD), manufactured by
Placer Fire Equipment
Placer may refer to one of the following:
* Placer deposit
*Placer sheep
*Placer mining
* Placer (geography), a submerged bank or reef.
* Placer, rugby league football role.
* Placer, a job title in the Pottery industry.
Geographical names:
* Pl ...
,
Rosenbauer, and
HME. Model 34/35's are currently being fielded statewide. As of 2009 Model 35's have been discontinued and Model 34's from BME Apparatus are the new standard. Fact sheets on all of CAL FIRE's current-service Type 3 (wildland) engine models can be found on the CAL FIRE Web site under Mobile Equipment.
Image:cdfengine.jpg, Type-3 Wildland Engine, CAL FIRE Model 14
Image:cdf_engine.jpg, Type-3 Wildland Engine, CAL FIRE Model 5
Image:CDF_MOD24.jpg, Type-3 Wildland Engine, CAL FIRE Model 34
Image:Smeal Type-1 Municipal Engine.jpg, Smeal Type-1 Municipal Engine, owned by San Luis Obispo County and operated by CAL FIRE under contract
Air program
CAL FIRE owns its own fleet of air tankers, tactical aircraft and helicopters, which are managed under the Aviation Management Program. Additional aviation resources are leased by the department when needed. All of the fixed wing aircraft, while owned by CAL FIRE, are piloted and maintained by DynCorp International. The CAL FIRE Air Program is one of the largest non-military air programs in the country, consisting of twenty-three (23)
Grumman S-2 Tracker (S-2T version) 1,200 gallon fixed wing turboprop air tankers, fourteen (14)
North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco fixed wing turboprop air tactical aircraft and twelve (12)
Bell UH-1H
The Bell UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed "Huey") is a utility military helicopter designed and produced by the American aerospace company Bell Helicopter. It is the first member of the prolific Huey family, as well as the first turbine-powered helico ...
Super Huey helicopters. CAL FIRE has also now begun operating new
Sikorsky S-70
The Sikorsky S-70 is an American medium transport/utility helicopter family manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. It was developed for the United States Army in the 1970s, winning a competition to be designated the UH-60 Black Hawk and spawning ...
i Firehawk helicopters for aerial firefighting support including water drops and is planning to acquire up to twelve (12) of these rotorcraft to replace the aging Bell UH-1H Super Huey fleet. From the thirteen (13) air attack and ten (10) helitack bases located statewide, aircraft can reach most fires within 20 minutes.
Aircraft are a prominent feature of CAL FIRE, especially during the summer fire season. Both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are employed. Helicopters (also known as
rotorcraft
A rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings or rotor blades, which generate lift by rotating around a vertical mast. Several rotor blades mounted on a single mast are referred to as a rotor. The Inter ...
or rotary wing aircraft) are used to transport firefighting "Helitack Crews" into fire areas. They also drop water and retardant chemicals on fires. Fixed-wing aircraft are used for
command
Command may refer to:
Computing
* Command (computing), a statement in a computer language
* COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS
* Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards
...
, observation, and to drop retardant chemicals on fires.
[Fraser, Debbie, ''CDF Training and Academy Course Catalog, March 2006,'' (Ione, California: State of California, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 2006).]
CAL FIRE contracted in the past with
10 Tanker Air Carrier
The DC-10 Air Tanker is a series of American wide-body jet air tankers, which have been in service as an aerial firefighting unit since 2006. The aircraft, operated by the joint technical venture 10 Tanker Air Carrier, are converted wide body M ...
for three years' of exclusive use of their
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 heavy air tanker known as
Tanker 910 for
aerial firefighting
Aerial may refer to:
Music
* ''Aerial'' (album), by Kate Bush
* ''Aerials'' (song), from the album ''Toxicity'' by System of a Down
Bands
* Aerial (Canadian band)
*Aerial (Scottish band)
*Aerial (Swedish band)
Performance art
*Aerial silk, ...
at a cost of $5 million per year. Additional access was also provided to
DC-10-30
The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 is an American trijet wide-body aircraft manufactured by McDonnell Douglas.
The DC-10 was intended to succeed the DC-8 for long-range flights. It first flew on August 29, 1970; it was introduced on August 5, 1971, ...
air tankers, being Tanker 911 and Tanker 912. In 2014 Tanker 910 was retired; however, 10 Tanker Air Carrier continues to currently operate several DC-10-30 air tankers.
["Supertanker ready for summer of fighting California's fires", ''Inland Wildfires'', June 14, 2007, accessed August 6, 2007](_blank)
/ref>
On October 7, 2014, a CAL FIRE S-2T air tanker crashed while fighting the Dog Rock Fire in Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...
. The pilot was killed.[Plane Crashes At Yosemite National Park During Fight Against Dog Rock Fire](_blank)
KOVR-TV, October 7, 2014
File:Waterbomber in Los Angeles County.jpg, Tanker 910 during a drop demonstration in December, 2006
File:Cdf-b205-N497DF-061027-02cr-16.jpg, CAL FIRE "Super Huey", formerly an UH-1H, assigned to the Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...
Helitack crew, takes off from the Mojave Airport
File:Cdf-ov10-N415DF-071022-fox-02-16.jpg, CAL FIRE OV-10 Bronco "Air Attack 460" at Fox Field during the October 2007 California wildfires
The October 2007 California wildfires, also known as the Fall 2007 California firestorm, were a series of about thirty wildfires (17 of which became major wildfires) that began igniting across Southern California on October 20. At least 1,500 h ...
Communications
CAL FIRE uses several enterprise IT systems to manage operations. Altaris CAD, a computer-assisted dispatch system made by Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tec ...
, is employed by each unit's emergency command center (ECC) to track available resources and assignments. This is made possible through the use of an automatic vehicle locating (AVL) system which provides vehicle location, data communication, and dispatching through a mobile data computer (MDC) and a multi-network switching system in over 1200 vehicles statewide. Each operational unit has a stand-alone system which includes detailed address and mapping information.
In popular culture
'' Fire Country'' is an American drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
television series in which a young convict volunteers for the Conservation Camp Program and assists Cal Fire.
See also
* California Conservation Corps
* California Department of Parks and Recreation
* FIRESCOPE
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:California Department Of Forestry And Fire Protection
Fire departments in California
Firefighting in California
Emergency services in California
Forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. ...
Forestry and Fire Protection
State forestry agencies in the United States
State environmental protection agencies of the United States
Wildfire suppression agencies
Aerial firefighting
Government agencies established in 1905
1905 establishments in California