P A G E 2

California Fire Chiefs

Association

Fire Districts Association of

California FIRESCOPE

League of California Cities

California Metropolitan

Fire Chiefs Association

Who We Are

California Professional

Firefighters

California State

Firefighters Association

P A G E 3

“Things have changed in the last 50 years, and

before we depended on mutual aid to get us

mutual aid in first 12 to 24 hours. Now we need

them in first minutes to hours.”

- Fire Chief Jeff Carman, Metro Fire Chiefs Association(CBS Sacramento, 2/27/18)

Issue Brief

P A G E 5

Increasing temperatures, more

frequent “record highs”

2013-14 driest year on record;

worst drought in last 1200 years2016-17 wettest year

on record since 1895

More extreme precipitation

(“atmospheric rivers”)

Smaller snowpack,

earlier spring snowmelt

More high-wind events later in

“second wildfire season”

(December)

Increase in Natural Disasters from

Extreme Weather PatternsTHE CHALLENGE

P A G E 6

Wildfire season in Western U.S. has

increased from 138 days in 1970s

to 222 days (+84 days)

Average burn time of large fires

(1,000+ acres) has increased during past

40 years from six days to 52 days

2010-2016:

100 million+ dead trees; 20x increase

in annual tree mortality

More than 2 million households

(15% of all CA households) at

high or extreme risk from wildfires

Since 2000

• 14 of 20 LARGEST wildfires in CA history

• 12 of 20 MOST DESTRUCTIVE wildfires in CA history

October 2017 – among the most destructive wildfires in CA history

• Tubbs = 5,636 structures lost (1st)

• Nuns = 1,355 structures lost (6th)

• Atlas = 783 structures lost (10th)

• Redwood Valley = 546 structures lost (16th)

Worsening Fire ConditionsTHE CHALLENGE

P A G E 7

I. First Responders (Local)

II. Mutual Aid/Automatic Aid (Regional)

III. Intra-State Requests (State)

IV. Inter-State Requests (Regional)

V. National/Military Assistance (Federal) Ca

pa

bil

itie

s a

nd

Re

so

urc

es

Federal Response

Regional / Mutual Response Systems

State Response

Increasing magnitude and severity

Local Response, Municipal and County

Minimal Low Medium High Catastrophic

Source: Cal OES

Tiered response based

on severity

HOW WE RESPOND TO DISASTERS

P A G E 8

Cal OES

LOCAL FEDERAL & MILITARY

WHO DOES WHAT

STATE

• Manages Mutual Aid System

▪ Processes request

▪ Deploys local mutual aid resources

▪ Reimburses local agencies

▪ Provides state-purchased

equipment and apparatus

• Fire protection in State Responsibility Area

(SRA), except for six “contract counties”

CAL FIRE

• Provides disaster response support and

funding

• Responds until they reach capacity of

local resources

• Participates in Mutual Aid System to

request and provide help to other

agencies

▪ 86% percent of available fire

engines are owned by local

government

California’s Mutual Aid SystemA NATIONAL MODEL

Includes

1,100 fire departments &

55,000+ firefighters

Nearly 6,000 apparatus

available statewide

Can mobilize

500 apparatus within 12 hrs &

another 500 within 24 hrs

200-250 Strike Team/Task

Forces

(~5 engines and staff)

Cal OES has 166 apparatus,

plus 195 assigned to local

governments

(engines, communications units, swift water

rescue, urban search and rescue)

USFS (Dept. of Agriculture)

• Responsible for the US Forest lands in

California

• Send/receive strike teams for California

incidents

P A G E 9

• Mutual Aid System is stressed

• Not enough resources, as local agencies are less able to export equipment and staff

▪ In 2003, the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission recommended OES purchase 150 engines (in addition

to existing 100 engines) – funding has only allowed for purchase of 44.

• Mutual Aid requests in 2017 totaled 36,000, 11,000 (31%) went unfilled

• Updates needed to Mutual Aid system (compacts, communications interoperability)

• No operational or funding mechanism for “pre-positioning” local resources through Mutual Aid system because

it is a “reactive” system

Year 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Engine/WT 134 214 403 958 3,029 6,134

Overhead 1,073 1,404 2,315 4,758 4,034 4,867

Total 1,207 1,618 2,718 5,716 7,063 11,018

California Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid System | Unable to Fill Resource

Summary

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO INCREASED NATURAL DISASTERS

P A G E 10PRE-POSITIONING

Definition: Request and deploy Mutual Aid before a disaster incident, utilizing National Weather Service

“Red Flag Warnings” or extreme weather advisories of hot/dry/wet/high wind conditions

• Resources in place to provide immediate, effective response (attack),

mitigate loss of lives and property

• Effectively used by CAL FIRE prior to position resources in advance of

extreme weather, such as Santa Ana winds and hot/dry conditions

• Used in Ventura County before Thomas Fire and Montecito mudslide

▪ Additional 24 engines based on wind advisory before Thomas Fire

▪ OES prepositioned 29-member Regional Urban Search and Rescue

Task force before heavy rains that led to the Montecito mudslide

P A G E 11

“Prepositioned equipment could have made a huge

difference. Even if it did not stop it, we would have had

more equipment to help people evacuate and defend

communities that were just decimated.”

- Santa Rosa Fire Chief Anthony Gossner(Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 3/1/18)

P A G E 12NEEDED FUNDING

$87 million to reimburse local governments for

costs to pre-position resources in high-risk areas

prior to the onset of extreme weather conditions

(wind, heavy rain and “red flag” fire conditions)

The $100 million budget augmentation for FY 2018-2019:

$13 million for improved communications

technologies to allow more efficient and effective

resource deployment

▪ Convert local fire agencies to a GPS-linked

communications system – Automatic Vehicle

Location (AVL)

▪ Replacement of the Resource Ordering and Status

System for dispatching resources for large-scale

disasters

▪ Bring in additional personnel to regional dispatch

centers

▪ Improved technologies to alert communities of

approaching threats

P A G E 13

Appendix A

P A G E 14

• http://news.mit.edu/2017/more-extreme-storms-ahead-california-0103

• https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/climate-change/document-climate-change/climatechangecaliforniabibliography2016.pdf

• https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/wildfires-west-have-gotten-bigger-more-frequent-and-longer-1980s

• http://www.fire.ca.gov/treetaskforce/downloads/TMTFMaterials/Facts_and_Figures.pdf (Page 7)

• https://www.iii.org/issue-update/background-on-wildfires

• http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/Safety/Panel%201%20-%20Tyler.pdf

• https://www.firescope.org/meetings/bod/2018/bod_meeting1/documents/California%20Fire%20%20Rescue%20Mutual%20Aid%20System%20S

ummit%20Minutes%20-%20July%202017%20up....pdf

• https://www.firescope.org/blue-ribbon/BlueRibbonRept.pdf

• http://www.oesnews.com/swiftwater-teams-deployed-to-socal-for-mudslide-response-efforts/

• Zagaris 2017 CFED Fire Chiefs Summit Cal OES Zagaris PDF

• Cal OES, CA Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid PPT

ReferencesAPPENDIX A