It's been an intense year for wildfires in California. Many fire departments across the state are assessing the most efficient ways to fight fires in their communities. Kaye PBS reporter Priya Schriefer takes us to Juliet where there's a battle over a volunteer fire department. Fifteen years ago flames ripped through the quia Mokka mountains in the Cleveland National Forest. More than 2000 homes destroyed and 270000 acres burned in the Cedar Fire. Mike Finn Bibber battalion chief for The Juliann quia MCCA fire prevention districts Volunteer Fire Department remembers it well. He says the efforts of more than two dozen volunteers from Jullien prevented the devastation from being even worse. This has been the fabric the backbone of our community for many years and we in the back country realize that the next closest help is quite a ways away. But the era of using volunteer firefighters as the front line in Jullien may be coming to an end. In February the board of the fire prevention district voted 3 to 2 to dissolve the volunteer department. Ida Tucker is one of those board members. I looked at the budget. And saw that we there's no way we were going to be able to make it in the next couple of years. I mean we probably would be broke by then without any extra help thinking about the community. And what they deserve. I decided to go ahead and vote to dissolve the district because of staffing and response problems. Julians Fire Prevention Board asked the San Diego County Fire Authority for help in 2015. It entered into a two year contract and the county gave the area extra resources and a hundred and five thousand dollars in subsidies and services. But when the contract expired in October of last year the board voted to stay independent. So much of the extra county funding disappeared Tucker says. It quickly became clear that Juliann wouldn't be able to fund a 24/7 response team on its own. The county has helped us all these years. We've received money from them every year to run our station. They've helped us with other things to communications and things like that. Julian residents have been paying fifty dollars a year to support the volunteer department and next month will vote whether to raise that fee to two hundred dollars a year. But that fee increase will only take effect if supporters of the volunteers are successful in a petition drive to save the department. Van Bibber and the other volunteers are already collecting signatures to stop the dissolution. But I have a good feeling that it's going to pass overwhelmingly. It will go to the people and then JCA PD as we know it will emerge from the ashes and become better than we ever were. They have until mid October to get 25 percent of the residents in the district to sign the petition and put the matter to a vote. In the meantime the County Fire Authority is using Cal Fire employees to provide emergency services in Jullien the Fire Authority says the community will not see any new taxes as a result of the reorganization. Instead the property taxes that had been going to the volunteer district will now go to the county. Funding isn't the only concern. Cal Fire Captain John Hagy says he's willing to work with the volunteers but many of them didn't have the right certifications to be responding to emergencies. So many like Van Bibber haven't been allowed to work since the consolidation on June 1st. Some of those people did not have the certification. What the county has done is made numerous attempts to provide training for those employees to get them up to a level so they can serve their community. Van Bibber sees the move to dissolve the volunteer fire force as an attack on his community's way of life. I think it goes way back to our forefathers this country. They realize that more government was not the answer we the people govern ourselves and take care of each other. Volunteers like Van Bibber will continue to collect signatures hoping to push the issue to a citizens vote. Joining me is PBS reporter Priya Schriever and prio welcome to the program. Thank you. In your feature we heard that the Juliann Volunteer Fire Department entered into a contract with the county in 2015 and the county gave them funding to continue but that contract was not continued past 2017. My question was why not. Was it the volunteers or the county that pulled the plug on that. So it was actually neither. There is a board of with the Julian Cuyamaca fire prevention district that's a mouthful that's made up of five members. And those are the members who kind of vote to decide where the funding's going to come from whether there is going to be mutual aid. Agreements with Cal Fire or the County Fire Authority and they actually voted to remain independent. However very quickly within about three or four months they realize that it just wasn't sustainable that they weren't able to respond to all the emergencies and Cal Fire was actually responding to about 30 percent of the calls that were coming into their fire department. So they realized at that time that you know they're going to need to enter again into some sort of formal agreement with the county about how many Juliann volunteer firefighters are there. So they had a roster of around 50 volunteer firefighters. But as you heard in the story unfortunately many of them are not being utilized at the moment. The consolidation happened on June 1st and what the County Fire Authority realized was that many of them were not up to date with their certification. So I asked the Cal Fire Chief John Hagy who you also heard in that story about how many are being used right now and he said probably about a dozen. So they are offering training. They say that since June 1st they've offered about a thousand hours of training to try to get everyone up to speed so that they can serve but unfortunately not all of the volunteers have really utilized or taken advantage of that training and certification training that would bring the volunteer firefighters up to speed when it comes to safety concerns and how to approach an emergency situation. I'm wondering is there actual firefighting equipment up to date and safe. That was another huge concern that when the county came in and started assessing the resources that the volunteers had been using they said this is a liability issue here that a lot of the breathing apparatuses and even the uniforms that the firefighters were wearing were not up to date. So they said listen this isn't even a safety concern for the people that they're trying to respond to. It's also a safety concern for the volunteers and they simply cannot have people going into dangerous situations without the right protective gear. Now what are the arguments the volunteer firefighters make is that they are residents of the community. They are there. They know the terrain. What does Cal Fire have to say about that. Yeah you know what Maureen. This was a really emotional issue for these people. Many of the volunteers have been living in this area for decades and so they really feel like this is their community and that they want to be the ones to protect it. Cal Fire says listen we're professionals. We've been responding to fires across the state of California for years we have the training we have the resources we have the equipment we have the network to respond to fires and emergencies anywhere there gas. This is the 21st century we know how to get places and our response times are really fast so they really want to incorporate that local knowledge that the volunteers have. And they say hey we're listening I mean we're willing to bring you guys on board and supplement perhaps the knowledge that we don't know of this area. But they feel more than equipped to be able to work in that area. But one thing I also want to mention is you know that kind of local pride is something that's really coming out in this petition drive that I mentioned in the story. You're seeing a lot of back country strong t shirts and people really rallying behind the volunteers which I thought was pretty unique to see. Well the volunteer firefighter you spoke with Mike Van Bibber sounded quite confident that they would get the necessary signatures to put the question of which firefighter agencies should continue in Julian to voters. From your reporting do the volunteer firefighters have a lot of support. You know it's really hard to say because like in so many kind of contentious political debates you oftentimes hear from people who are really passionate but that might only be a small percentage of the people who actually lived there. So as of right now they need 25 percent of the residents to sign onto this petition to bring it to a citizens vote. That would be about five hundred and sixty signatures there is more than 4000 residents there. There is about 50 volunteer firefighters so that's far less than 560 so you know what I think it's going to be really interesting to see if they're able to rally that support the opposition to the dissolution of the volunteer fire department is certainly very vocal but the numbers are a little hard to tell. And when do they need to have those signatures by by the next Lefkow hearing which is October 16th. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter Priya Sridhar. Thank you. Thank you.
The era of using volunteer firefighters as the front line in Julian may be coming to an end.
In February, the Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Prevention District board voted 3 to 2 to dissolve the volunteer fire force that had been serving the community since the 1980s.
Aida Tucker is the vice president of the JCFPD board and voted to dissolve the department.
"I looked at the budget and saw that there’s no way we were going to be able to make it in the next couple years. We probably would be broke by then without any extra help, so thinking about the community and what they deserve, I decided to go ahead and vote to dissolve the district," she said.
Because of staffing and response problems, Julian's Fire Prevention Board asked the San Diego County Fire Authority for help in 2015. It entered into a two-year contract and the county gave the area extra resources and $105,000 in subsidies and services. But when the contract expired in October 2017, the board voted to stay independent, and much of the extra county funding disappeared. Tucker said it quickly became clear that Julian wouldn't be able to fund a 24/7 response team on its own.
"The county has helped us all these years. We’ve received money from them every year to run our station...They’ve helped us with other things too as far as communications and things like that," she said.
Mike Van Bibber is a battalion chief for JCFPD and has been volunteering for more than thirty years. He is strongly opposed to the board's decision to dissolve the district.
"It goes way back to our forefathers of our country, they realized that more government is not always the answer. We the people govern ourselves and take care of each other," he said.
JCFPD has been using a roster of approximately fifty volunteer firefighters to respond to anything from house fires to traffic accidents, according to Van Bibber. Julian residents have been paying $50 a year to support the volunteer department. Next month, they'll vote whether to raise that fee to $200 a year. That fee increase will only take effect if supporters are successful in a petition drive to save the department. Van Bibber and other volunteers are already collecting signatures to stop the dissolution.
"I have a good feeling it’s going to pass overwhelmingly. It’ll go to the people and then JCFPD as we know it will emerge from the ashes and become better than we ever were," Van Bibber said.
They have until mid-October to get 25 percent of the residents in the district to sign the petition and put the matter to a vote.
In the meantime, the Fire Authority is using Cal Fire employees to provide emergency services in Julian. The Fire Authority said the community will not see any new taxes as a result of the reorganization. Instead, the property taxes that had been going to the volunteer district will go to the county.
Van Bibber and his supporters find that hard to believe.
"I'm sorry, I’m of the school that you don’t get anything for nothing, and if that is true then we’re the only county in the entire state that is not going to be required to pay. Every other county that has been taken over by the county fire authorities has paid significantly," he said.
Funding isn't the only concern. Cal Fire Captain Jon Heggie said he's willing to work with the volunteers, but many of them didn't have the right certifications to be responding to emergencies. Many, like Van Bibber, haven't been allowed to work since the consolidation on June 1.
"Some of those people did not have the certification they needed, but what the county has done is make numerous attempts to try to get training for those employees to get them up to a level so they can serve their community," Heggie said.
Van Bibber sees the move to dissolve the volunteer fire force as an attack on his community's way of life.
"It goes way back to our forefathers of our country. They realized that more government is not always the answer. We the people govern ourselves and take care of each other," he said.
For now, the transition is underway. Heggie says he understands change is challenging.
"We did not come in here and ask to be here. We were asked to be here," he said. "But the reality is we’re here to serve the public. That’s why I signed up to be a firefighter, that’s why my coworkers signed up for this profession. Bottom line at the end of the day, if we can provide a level of service to the people of Julian that they expect, then that’s what we’re here to do."
