State Officials Scrambling to Adjust to Year-Round Fire Season

The ongoing drought, combined with slower but significant shifts brought about by climate change, is changing the way California's largest fire protection agency does business, according to state officials.

Fire season isn't limited to the summer and fall anymore -- wildfires have become a year-round threat that require year-round resources, said Cal Fire Director Ken Pimlott.

"It's subtle -- yet you can see changes in weather patterns and vegetation that is leading to conditions that are more conductive to wildland fires that you see in what you would call the nontraditional months,” he said. “That means we have had to look at how we staff and prepare and respond to those conditions during the winter months and other times of the year.”

That includes stationing 25 fully staffed fire engines year-round in Northern California, an area of the state that fire officials didn't use to worry about come winter, Pimlott said.

Most of the money for fighting these unexpectedly large fires comes from an emergency fund that lives in the Cal Fire budget, but for nine of the past 10 years the governor has had to add tens of millions of dollars to that “e-fund” when costs ran over.

Lingering Effects of Recession

Like all state agencies, Cal Fire took some big hits during the recession. In 2008, for example, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers, desperate for ways to find cash as the state swam in red ink, budgeted just $69 million for the emergency fund but had to spend more than $500 million.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said Gov. Jerry Brown has tried to more realistically plan for the numerous devastating wildfires hitting the state in recent years as the drought continues to take a toll.

This year, state leaders settled on a number for the e-fund by averaging the most expensive five years of the past decade, instead of just an average of the last five years. But it still won't be enough. The total emergency budget this year was set at $392 million for the fiscal year that began July 1, but as of this week, Cal Fire had already spent more than $276 million.

Palmer stressed, however, that these are budgeted numbers, not real cash. The state, he said, will always make resources available to respond to disasters.

For example, in the last few weeks Brown authorized the hiring of an additional 150 firefighters through the end of the calendar year, extended some leases on private helicopters and approved the purchase of new buckets that can draw water from more shallow reservoirs.

Any cost overruns come from a state reserve, known as the "special fund for economic uncertainties." It's basically the pot of money that covers any disaster, from earthquakes to wildfires to flooding. Brown has made growing that reserve a priority; it’s set at $1.1 billion this year.

Pimlott said fire and finance officials are also engaging in bigger conversations about whether larger permanent changes need to take place at Cal Fire -- from year-round staffing to updating technology and equipment. The agency is in the process of replacing its Vietnam-era helicopters and updating its overall communication and predictive technologies.

"Long term, those are some discussions we have to look at," he said. "These fire conditions are really here to stay, and while we may have more intense years and then less intense years, depending on rainfall patterns, etc., the overall trend is toward a year-round fire season."