By Ishani Desai
The Sacramento Bee
YOLO COUNTY, Calif. — Fire Chief David Garrison surveyed fields of golden grass in Yolo County connected to him for generations.
He drove through Dunnigan on a recent morning recalling fighting fires across the small area’s rolling wildlands early in his career. Garrison, chief of the Dunnigan Fire Protection District and sworn to protect about 1,300 residents, is among 15 rural district chiefs representing unincorporated parts of Yolo County. And he is among those on the front lines fighting for the survival of their district.
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In these rural parts, firefighters do not just extinguish flames. They are often the fastest emergency medical providers, clear clogged roads and disperse sandbags as storms flood crumbling arteries. Each fire district, composed mostly of volunteers, steps up to ensure people’s survival as ambulances need at least 30 minutes to reach residents to provide critical care.
Without these fire departments, “people would end up dying or structures would end up burning down,” said Dunnigan resident Lawerence Lindberg, 52.
But the world has evolved and the fire agencies’ model has not kept pace, fire chiefs said. Plunging rates of volunteer firefighters — now the mainstays of most departments — deplete forces as first responders flock to paid positions. Call volumes have generally increased. The rising cost of equipment hollow out budgets.
“Eventually (the failure of rural fire districts is) going to reach people all over the state,” Garrison said. His fire district and others lend firefighters to extinguish historic wildfires all over California.
The lack of funding is exacerbated as Cal Fire listed parts around Dunnigan, in a district that borders Colusa County, under high or moderately high fire risk.
Fire protection districts are not county agencies and are responsible for generating their funds, which come from property taxes. Still, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors recognized the “vital services” provided by rural firefighters and attempted to help by allocating one-time general funds in the 2021-22 fiscal year budget and additional funding the following fiscal year, a Yolo County spokesperson said.
“While we have provided technical support and one-time funds, fire districts are separate agencies from the county and ultimately responsible for securing their own long-term funding,” the spokesperson said in a prepared statement.
The very survival of some fire districts hinges on their ability to enact solutions. But in a county containing areas with different priorities and needs, a singular consensus and solution is hard to come by. The varying opinions extend to residents.
Fire chiefs have attempted to pass Proposition 218, a fee to raise money for personnel and equipment. Some districts approved the assessment while others rejected it. In Dunnigan, 80% of residents voted against the fees, the highest rejection across all the districts in 2023 and 2024, according to county election data.
Ballots have begun being mailed to residents of districts in Esparto, Clarksburg, Yolo and Springlake to again weigh in on the new fees. Voters living in those districts rejected the assessment in years past.
Multiple Yolo County fire districts now respond in unison for large-scale incidents, such as fires or farming accidents, Garrison said. The lack of funds could lead to the dissolution of a district, which will transform the landscape of public safety across the region, he said.
“If Dunnigan Fire goes away, you are going to have ripple effect on every other department in the county,” Garrison said.
“When you start taking a piece out of the puzzle, eventually that’s going to cause another piece to fall out of the puzzle,” he added, “and then another and another.”
Volunteerism at Yolo County fire districts
Volunteerism across the fire districts has deep roots, dating to the 1700s, when fighting fires fell on the shoulders of residents living in their communities, according to a 2019 report created by the Yolo County in the wake of challenges endured by fire protection districts.
Esparto Fire Chief Curtis Lawrence fondly recalled one of his best volunteer members on the force — a man in his 70s with deep ties to the community. This first responder does not have a chance to retire because of the difficulty to recruit staff, he said.
Outside of fire departments, few governmental agencies rely on volunteers to provide services to the community, Lawrence said.
“You don’t see volunteer sheriffs on the road,” he said. “You don’t see volunteers out paving the highways. You don’t see volunteer teachers.”
Since the 1980s, volunteer rates have declined. If the downward trend continues, there will be about half the number of volunteers as 20 years ago, according to a 2022 projection.
Volunteer firefighters make up about 65% of the entire firefighting force in America. In 1984, that workforce numbered 897,750 but dropped to 220,850 people by 2020, according to a May 2023 FEMA report. Over these years, the U.S. population boomed from nearly 236 million to more than 331 million.
Besides falling numbers of volunteers, the Dunnigan Fire Protection District grapples with high turnover. On a recent visit to its fire station, one firefighter was leaving the same day as a new recruit joined the force.
The number of sufficient volunteers is inconsistent across each Yolo County fire protection district. Zamora Fire Chief Chase Covington said he has about 16 volunteers for an area that takes about a minute to drive from end to end. The district has sufficient volunteers to handle its call volume, according to a 2022 report by the Yolo Local Agency Formation Commission.
“Luckily, a lot of our volunteers know a lot of people,” Covington said.
High fire equipment costs
The Zamora Fire Protection District, to buy a bright new fire engine, has a truck fund it keeps to save up for a vital piece of equipment — that’s if money is left over in the budget at the year’s end, Covington said.
But with paltry funds, it could take decades to buy a brand new truck, which industry standards say should be replaced every 10 years. A firefighter union estimated last month that costs of trucks doubled over the past few years, with pumper trucks costing about $1 million and ladder trucks skyrocketing to $2 million.
Most fire districts’ entire budgets are way less than $1 million.
High costs, which local fire districts attribute to inflation, cause consternation for local budget managers. Fire trucks aren’t the only costs — departments must also buy equipment to aid their firefights and to render medical aid. Those costs have increased, too, said fire chiefs.
Dunnigan also has one of the highest call volumes throughout the district, with about 551 requests for help per year for 1,110 residents, according to a 2022 Yolo Local Agency Formation Commission report about fire protection districts. The number of calls increased by 42% in three years, from fiscal year 2018 to fiscal year 2021, according to the report.
The Willow Oak Fire Protection District, with more than double the population size, had 554 calls. The Esparto Fire Protection District recorded 589 calls for 3,780 residents, the report said.
‘Change in our model’
To fund his budget, Garrison said he receives about $220,000 worth of property taxes in his budget.
Yolo County collects the second-lowest share of property taxes across the state, said the county’s chief fiscal officer during Board of Supervisors’ June 10 meeting.
Garrison, who receives a stipend as a volunteer chief, works seven days a week while trying to balance the responsibilities of his separate day job. His kids eat dinner at the station as he attends meetings with Dunnigan’s governing body and with the county.
That Dunnigan locals rejected the Prop. 218 assessment is understandable to Garrison. He called the area’s residents principled people — “the world probably needs more people like that” — and he hails from a similar background. Three fire chiefs across Yolo County identified a general mistrust in government for the failure of the initiative.
With his deep-rooted connections to Dunnigan, Garrison called the possibility of the district folding heartbreaking. The closure of Dunnigan Fire Protection District would prompt changes to response times, service costs shouldered by residents and societal changes by replacing local firefighters.
“It’s hard,” he said. “You feel like you’re failing, and you’re letting those people down.”
Stephanie Weir, a Dunnigan resident, recalled how she called firefighters five times in one week to simply help lift her husband after he fell on the floor. In her 70s, she did not have the strength to help him off the ground.
Some believe the county should provide more funds. Dunnigan residents, during a March Board of Supervisors meeting, expressed frustration that sales tax generated by local businesses goes straight to the county.
“Dunnigan is out of sight, out of mind,” Mel Smith, a developer credited for bringing growth to the area, said during the meeting.
But Yolo County Counsel Phil Pogledich said sharing sales tax with a special district is not expressly allowed under state law. Supervisor Oscar Villegas added diverting sales tax away from the board does not allow for flexibility across flush or lean fiscal years.
“That’s dangerous for us as a board,” Villegas added during the meeting.
California counties with rural fire districts have grappled with similar problems felt in Yolo County. Many consolidated protection districts into one agency — similar to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District — or contracted with Cal Fire.
In order to maintain services, fire protection districts have to come up with creative solutions.
The Esparto Fire Protection District entered into a joint operating agreement with neighboring fire district Capay Valley to create a shared position and contract out the firefighter to afford the salary, Lawrence said.
Lawrence is in one of four paid positions and he works full time at the station. The district also receives about $45,000 from a local Native American tribe.
Esparto residents are among the few that will be asked to approve increased fees through the Prop. 218 assessment this month. Lawrence, after listening to people’s concerns of high costs, said the new assessment decreases fees from a 2023 attempt to pass it.
Fire chiefs across Yolo County have differing opinions on the best solution. For Garrison, he believes a sales tax geared toward rural communities could be of help, and does not believe that consolidation could help maintain the same level of service for the same costs — residents would have to bear increased costs with alternative solutions, he said.
Lawrence, for his part, has kept an open mind and believes all options should be explored.
“If we are thinking about what we’re doing today, I think we are failing at our job,” he said. “That’s not our job. As fire chief, our job is preparing for what is coming in the future.”
“We need to start preparing ourselves for a change in our model.”
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