Burning questions for fire officials

County fire authorities are hoping to light a match under the community – and get them thinking about, well, fire.

During two months of meetings in communities as large as Santa Rosa and as small as Camp Meeker, officials from the county’s Fire Services Project have been speaking and listening to residents in an effort to gauge their fire-services needs. They’re asking such questions as – what do the people of Sonoma County want from their fire departments, and where should fire district boundaries be established?

It’s the basis for a project organized by the County Board of Supervisors that will be ongoing through 2015.

“The chair of the board of supervisors has formed a fire services ad-hoc committee to address the nature of fire services in the county, particularly in the unincorporated areas,” said Fire Services Project coordinator Chris Thomas.

Thomas, an assistant administrator with the county, has been selected as meeting facilitator for the committee, which will be comprised of 70 members of the Sonoma County fire protection community, including 11 from the Sonoma Valley area.

“The intended outcome is a more effective and efficient fire system in Sonoma County. The ad hoc committee will address some immediate challenges, as well as establish a longer-term process which builds on historical and recent efforts to improve fire governance,” he said.

The initial meetings to gather data and feedback for the Fire Services Project were conducted in more than 50 communities, fire districts and organizations.

Thomas said any decisions should result in “a quality of service that equals or exceeds the level that would exist without changes,” and added that decisions “should improve the cost effectiveness” of fire services. He also stressed that decisions would be made with a countywide view.

Questions and concerns raised during the two months of fact-finding, conducted by Thomas and other county administrators, include how local fire agencies are financed, how fire department chief officers are trained, and how local departments will recruit young people as firefighters in the future.

One major area of concern is the possible relocation of fire departments under a consolidation process that may be more financially cost-effective, but could alter service to a community.

“Relocating a fire station to a more efficient area will still be worse for the person who was next door to the old station,” Thomas offered as an example of the feedback about consolidation.

During last October’s meetings at the Schell-Vista fire station, Schell-Vista Fire Protection District Commissioner Ken Finn noted that the vast majority of Sonoma County residents receive their fire-protection services from volunteer departments. He said Schell-Vista currently has a good combination of young men and senior veterans to staff the department.

“Many people think they are part of a fire district when they might not be, because we will always be there to help. But it can cost us when we go outside our fire-protection district areas to help people, and we need to look at ways for our volunteer departments to be better compensated.”

He was joined by Schell-Vista Fire Protection District Chairman Ernie Loveless, who said he wanted to see some of the county’s 40 fire-protection districts consolidate for greater efficiency.

“We’d like to clean up some of these boundaries and expand our areas of service for the residents who live in the county,” said Loveless.

The ad-hoc committee had scheduled a community meeting on Dec. 11, but it was postponed due to the heavy rain and flooding in the county. The next scheduled meeting is for Jan. 27, though Sonoma residents can get updates and further information by going to the projects website at sonomacounty.ca.gov/CAO/Fire-Services-Project/Advisory-Committee.