After a one-year absence, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as CAL FIRE, is moving back into the Tahoe Basin. The move, which was designed to better meet the department’s mission, comes at a fortuitous time when fire danger is at an all-time high due to a record low snowfall. It also comes as CAL FIRE is taking heat for the controversial fire prevention fee passed by the state legislature last year, which many rural homeowners and local fire districts argue is a redundant tax. Critics were also outraged earlier this year to learn of the existence of a $3.6 million fund that CAL FIRE failed to turn over to the state.
CAL FIRE is charged with protecting the 31 million acres in the State Responsibility Areas (SRA), the wildland areas where the state has financial responsibility for preventing and suppressing fires. Of that, 34,000 acres is in the Tahoe Basin. In the past, the U.S. Forest Service has managed CAL FIRE’s protection area in Tahoe as part of an agreement between the two agencies as a way to increase efficiency. But after a review this year, CAL FIRE decided to reassume direct responsibility for 70,000 acres statewide that it had “swapped” with the Forest Service — Tahoe, Lake Arrowhead, and San Jacinto near Riverside.
“It was a realignment of our fire suppression mission,” said CAL FIRE spokesman Daniel Berlant.
CAL FIRE is redirecting seven fire engines to the 70,000 acres, two of which will be headed to the Tahoe Basin. One will be located in Carnelian Bay and the other in South Lake Tahoe. Each engine comes with three firefighters. This marks a return to the Basin for CAL FIRE, which had engines in the same two locations from 2008 to 2011, but was forced to remove them after budget cuts. In 2012 the department was able to keep an engine in Truckee, which it would move to the North Shore on high fire days.
While the Nevada County Board of Supervisors is angry over the loss of its Nevada City-based CAL FIRE engine to the North Shore, Tahoe fire districts couldn’t be happier, especially in light of the earlier-than-normal fire season. After the driest January, February, and March on record since 1910, the area’s fire season has started a month ahead of normal. CAL FIRE has already responded to 45 percent more fires this year than in average years, according to Berlant.
“I think it’s great timing,” said North Tahoe Fire Protection District’s new fire chief, Mike Schwartz, who came on in October. “CAL FIRE is coming up when we are very vulnerable. We are really on high alert. It’s a really good year to have CAL FIRE coming back into the Basin, and we will try to do everything we can to keep them here.”
While CAL FIRE is tasked with fighting fires in wildland areas, they will work hand-in-hand with North Tahoe Fire on all calls, a “huge give-back to taxpayers,” Schwartz said. The department also does defensible space inspections, augmenting local fire districts’ abilities.
“It’s not CAL FIRE and locals,” Schwartz said, “but locals supported by CAL FIRE.”
CAL FIRE’s location in Carnelian Bay also fills in a gap in North Tahoe Fire’s service. Located between fire stations in Kings Beach and Tahoe City, Carnelian Bay can take more than 10 minutes to reach, a huge amount of time since a fire can double in size every minute. On a red flag day in 2011, an arson fire broke out in Carnelian Bay. CAL FIRE was the first to respond, something that NTFPD Public Information Officer Dave Zaski said prevented a major catastrophe in the Kingswood Village neighborhood.
“If they hadn’t jumped on it, we definitely would have had a big fire,” he said.
CAL FIRE’s presence on the North Shore not only means extra hands to fight fires and respond to medical emergencies, but also more resources sooner, such as immediate access to the CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba unit’s 20 engines and an aircraft based in Grass Valley.
CAL FIRE’s return to the Tahoe Basin might make some homeowners feel better about paying the $150 fire prevention fee, which was passed by the state legislature in 2011 as a way to cover the cost of fire prevention for people living in SRA zones. The fee, which hit homeowners last year, ignited a storm of protests, with opponents calling it a tax, which requires a two-thirds vote by the state senate, and a redundant cost, since many people who received the bill already pay local fire districts for the same service. (Those people receive a $35 discount.) Out of the more than 800,000 homeowners who were billed last year, about 11 percent filed appeals with the state. Because of that and a lawsuit by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, CAL FIRE is currently holding off on sending bills this year.
Although the fire fee is specifically for fire prevention and not suppression, Schwartz said, “From a simple perspective, if you have to pay the fee, even if it’s not directly related, it makes you feel good [that CAL FIRE is back in Tahoe].”
The North Tahoe Fire Protection District does not support the fire fee, he said.
CAL FIRE has also come under fire this year for the discovery that the department hid $3.6 million rather than depositing it into the state’s cash-strapped general fund. The money, which came from legal settlements for people found liable for starting wildland fires, was placed with the nonprofit California District Attorneys Association, and over the past eight years was used for training and equipment for fire investigations. Around $800,000 of the $3.6 million remains.
Berlant said the existence of the money, which pales in comparison to the $90 million generated by the fire prevention fee, was never a secret.
“We had no intent to hide the fund,” he said.
To stay up to date with North Tahoe Fire Protection District, visit its Facebook page. CAL FIRE provides information on major incidents at fire.ca.gov.
~ Comment on this story below.
