[Humboldt County] Editorial: Firefighters don’t, in fact, grow on trees

According to a Humboldt County grand jury report released Tuesday, two-thirds of the county’s populace relies on underfunded, underequipped firefighters.

Grim findings, indeed. But what should be done about it?

That so many rural Humboldt County residents — 90,000, by the grand jury’s count — rely on lifesavers who don’t have access to lifesaving equipment comes both as no shock to anyone who’s been paying attention for the last decade and as a damning indictment of a failed funding system.

In short, as its taxable industrial base has faded over the past half-century, the county can no longer afford to sufficiently self-fund its fire services in the traditional manner, according to the grand jury.

 “The provisions for organization and funding which California law has established for fire and emergency services in unincorporated areas are obsolete. Essential modern and functional gear and equipment are urgently needed,” the report states.

The grand jury’s immediate recommendation: Giving 20 percent of Measure Z tax revenue annually over the next five years to rural fire departments for new protective gear and communication equipment. That’s more than a reasonable proposal, considering the state of fire and emergency services in Humboldt County.

As detailed by the report, 42 separate fire and emergency services units — some within cities — operate within county limits. Too many of these fire and emergency services units rely on the goodwill of volunteers and donors. These “bake sale” departments scrape by on the blood and sweat of volunteers who find themselves forced to trust their lives and the lives of others to safety equipment two to three decades old. Moreover, 40 percent of the land in the county sits outside of a fire service area.

Not only are current funding levels grossly inadequate, but the means by which they are collected and distributed are unfair, the report states, both “to ratepayers who live in a district and find themselves paying for their own fire and emergency services and also for nonsubscribers who live in ‘no district’ territory.”

While the report asks the county Board of Supervisors to lobby state lawmakers to change the way the state allots fire funding — which won’t be anything new for local officials, especially after the noise Humboldt County made following the SRA fire prevention fee debacle — it also calls on the supervisors to study the countywide unification of fire and emergency services under a new Humboldt County Director of Fire and Emergency Services. While we’re on board with more money for equipment and improved communication, having the supervisors birth another bureaucracy upon the county remains an idea much in need of selling.

Either way, the current system remains an invitation to disaster. Improving it ought to be among your Board of Supervisors’ top priorities — especially now that we’re in the midst of a fire season during the state’s worst drought in recorded history.

June 20, 2015

Eureka Times-Standard