MURPHYS – The Calaveras Local Fire Protection Committee for Measure A will host a Town Hall at 6 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Native Sons of the Golden West Hall, 389 Main St., Murphys. The Town Hall offers a chance for voters to learn the details of Measure A, the Calaveras Local Fire Protection Tax Initiative.

Calaveras County voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to approve Measure A, which is a 1 percent sales tax to fund fire protection.

“We hope voters will come ready to ask questions,” said Dana M. Nichols, chairman of the citizen committee behind the measure. “We understand that this community strongly supports public safety, including firefighters. At the same time, not everyone may be familiar with the limited funding and staffing challenges facing our local fire agencies.”

Nichols said that representatives of the Murphys Fire Protection District will be invited to the meeting so that they can also offer information on how the district operates.

Murphys, like most fire districts in the county, depends on volunteer firefighters. Firefighters receive small stipends when they serve shifts at the station. Recently, many volunteers have been leaving fire districts countywide to take paid jobs.

When Murphys or any other district has a large emergency – a fully involved structure fire or a wildland fire that can’t be knocked down upon first attack – then it counts on neighboring districts to send in additional engines and firefighters.

Nichols, who is also on the board of San Andreas Fire Protection District, noted that Cal Fire also helps – when its engines are here. “Cal Fire at times sends its crews to big fires elsewhere in California. When that happens, Cal Fire counts on the local fire districts to cover for it.” Also, Cal Fire specializes in wildland fires. It is the local fire districts that have the specialized equipment and training for handling car crashes and health emergencies.

“Mutual aid is why we all need to confront this together,” Nichols said. “In order to keep my community from burning down, I need to know that my neighbors also have firefighters on duty who can help when needed.”

Nichols said that the citizens committee spent months in discussions with the local fire districts to come up with a plan that would win wide support. The measure requires that most of the funding be spent to keep firefighters on duty and requires fire agencies to report on how they use the money.

“This is a special tax – it can only be spent for operating our fire protection agencies,” Nichols said. “Voters may not realize that some of the other taxes they approved in recent years – such as the Transient Occupancy Tax – are general taxes. Even if those taxes were sold as benefiting public safety, elected leaders can always decide to use them for something else because they are general taxes. In contrast, elected leaders have no discretion to use Measure A for anything but its stated purpose – to keep firefighters on duty and adequately equipped and housed.”

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For years, Calaveras County’s fire districts have cooperated on Fire Academy training sessions like this one in May, 2022, in Copperopolis. Yet while local agencies continue to train plenty of volunteers, they struggle to hold on to them as big city and state fire agencies lure them away with the offer of paid jobs. Measure A would make it possible for fire districts to pay at least some firefighters, thus stopping the drain on Calaveras County talent.

COPPEROPOLIS – The Calaveras Local Fire Protection Committee for Measure A will host a Town Hall at 6 p.m. Aug. 6 in the Black Creek Clubhouse, 920 Black Creek Drive, Copperopolis. The Town Hall offers a chance for voters to learn the details of Measure A, the Calaveras Local Fire Protection Tax Initiative.

Calaveras County voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to approve Measure A, which is a 1 percent sales tax to fund fire protection.

“We hope voters will come ready to ask questions,” said Dana M. Nichols, chairman of the citizen committee behind the measure. “We understand that this community strongly supports public safety, including firefighters. At the same time, not everyone may be familiar with the limited funding and staffing challenges facing our local fire agencies.”

Nichols said that representatives of the Copperopolis Fire Protection District will be invited to the meeting so that they can also offer information on how the district operates.

Copperopolis is one of the few Calaveras County districts that does always have paid firefighters on duty. Yet the district still also depends on reserves for the second and third firefighters on its engines. Reserve firefighters receive small stipends when they serve shifts at the station. This summer, Copperopolis Fire has had fewer reserve firefighters available than it has had historically.

When Copperopolis or any other district has a large emergency – a fully involved structure fire or a wildland fire that can’t be knocked down upon first attack – then it counts on neighboring districts to send in additional engines and firefighters.

Nichols, who is also on the board of San Andreas Fire Protection District, noted that Cal Fire also helps – when its engines are here. “Cal Fire at times sends its crews to big fires elsewhere in California. When that happens, Cal Fire counts on the local fire districts to cover for it.” Also, Cal Fire specializes in wildland fires. It is the local fire districts that have the specialized equipment and training for handling car crashes and health emergencies.

“Mutual aid is why we all need to confront this together,” Nichols said. “In order to keep my community from burning down, I need to know that my neighbors also have firefighters on duty who can help when needed.”

Nichols said that the citizens committee spent months in discussions with the local fire districts to come up with a plan that would win wide support. The measure requires that most of the funding be spent to keep firefighters on duty and requires fire agencies to report on how they use the money.

“This is a special tax – it can only be spent for operating our fire protection agencies,” Nichols said. “Voters may not realize that some of the other taxes they approved in recent years – such as the Transient Occupancy Tax – are general taxes. Even if those taxes were sold as benefiting public safety, elected leaders can always decide to use them for something else because they are general taxes. In contrast, elected leaders have no discretion to use Measure A for anything but its stated purpose – to keep firefighters on duty and adequately equipped and housed.”

VALLEY SPRINGS – The leaders of Calaveras County’s largest local fire district this month decided to dip into the district’s financial reserves and hire six seasonal firefighters rather than risk going without enough firefighters during the looming summer fire season.

“We didn’t have anybody that wanted to continue to work for $125 a day,” Calaveras Consolidated Fire Protection District Chief Rich Dickinson said of the stipends the district pays to intern firefighters for 24-hour shifts.

Calaveras County’s local fire agencies have been losing their low-paid volunteers and interns in record numbers recently as Cal Fire goes on a hiring spree and California cities seek to replenish the depleted ranks of municipal fire departments. Even the federal government, long known for its low pay to firefighters, is now gearing up to pay a living wage to firefighters with funds from an infrastructure bill President Biden signed recently.

“Cal Fire took a lot of our people,” Dickinson said.

Until recently, Calaveras Consolidated – which serves Valley Springs, Burson, Wallace and Rancho Calaveras – always kept two paid firefighters on duty 24/7. One of those paid firefighters was stationed at the Jenny Lind station and one at the station in downtown Valley Springs. The district was able to keep two or three firefighters on both engines, however, by using volunteers and interns.

Now, however, it finds it is losing those interns and volunteers faster than it can replace them. Fortunately, the district had been able in recent years to earn money by renting engines and crews to Cal Fire strike teams fighting fires around the state. That windfall means that, temporarily, the district can afford to hire six more seasonal firefighters, said Kim Olson, a member of the district board with 48 years in fire service.

Olson said the district will spend almost $150,000 through Dec. 2 to double the number of firefighters on duty 24/7 to a total of four – two each at the District stations in Jenny Lind and Valley Springs. District directors voted unanimously on June 13 to approve the temporary funding.

In the long run, however, that pace of spending will not be sustainable unless the district gets new revenue. Without new revenue, the district might have to close one station next year, Dickinson said.

Calaveras County voters in November will vote on Measure A, a citizen initiative that would address the problem. Measure A, a 1-percent sales tax, would pay to staff fire engines at local agencies across the county. The approximately $900,000 a year that Calaveras Consolidated would receive through Measure A would be enough to keep the engines staffed at the existing stations and also to reopen a station in the Burson area that is now vacant.

“Cal Co isn’t the only fire district losing its trainees,” said Dana Nichols, chairman of the citizen committee behind Measure A. “For a long time, our young people have been stepping up to volunteer and provide these lifesaving services. But now with the rising cost of living and job opportunities elsewhere, they simply can’t afford to stay here.”

“Measure A is a way to guarantee adequate fire staffing countywide, and to ensure that at least some of our young people can afford to live and work in the community they love,” Nichols said.

            Learn more about Measure A at Calaveraslfp.org or call Nichols at 209-768-9072.