The John Driscoll
The Eureka Times-Standard

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A bill moving its way through the California Legislature calls for a yearly fee to property owners with structures in rural areas protected by state fire resources.

Senate Bill 1617 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The bill would potentially apply to 800,000 or more structures in State Responsibility Areas that are covered by CalFire and go into effect in 2010.

The total fee would be levied based on how prone a property is to fire, and be reduced if the owners have taken steps to defend their buildings — like using fire-resistant materials and clearing the space around them. To make the assessment, CalFire has estimated it would need 250 to 600 more field inspectors, and more than 350 vehicles. It would also pay "actual and reasonable costs" to county governments to collect the fee, which would be at least $100.

The bill has drawn fire from the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, who wrote to legislators in April opposing the measure. They called it "flawed and inequitable" like a 2003 bill that was passed and then rescinded because of administrative and legal troubles.

The letter said the bill would subsidize the far more expensive efforts of CalFire to fight wildfires in highly urbanized areas of the state by assessing the fee on all rural property owners.

"(State Responsibility Area) fees have a multitude of equity and administrative issues that disproportionately affect rural California," the board chair wrote.

Many structures in areas of state responsibility are also covered by other local fire agencies, and the way the bill is currently written, landowners could appeal the fee to get it reduced to less than $100 per year. But if a local agency requests more than one such review a year, the board may charge a review fee.

CalFire is still analyzing the bill, said spokesman Michael Jarvis. The department has in the past been opposed to State Responsibility Area fees, but said it's too early in the process for it to take a position in regard to this bill.

"We're still looking at it," Jarvis said. "There's a lot of pieces to it."

Humboldt County Supervisor Jill Geist said that in the last five years there have been fires of huge cost to the state.

"Unfortunately I can appreciate that the state is trying to find a way to provide those services and make them equitable," Geist said.

But Geist said she's concerned about ensuring local agencies are fully reimbursed their costs, and that the county be paid in full for collecting the fee.

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