CAL Fire Butte County plans to add an additional staff member to fire engines thanks to increased funding from Measure H.
Measure H passed during the November election, and it proposed a one percent sales tax for the county. The collected revenue from the tax is intended to go toward funding staff increases in emergency and community services.
CAL Fire Butte County announced that with the additional funding, engines are returning to what they call a traditional staffing model.
Three people will now be assigned to the fire engines. Each one will have a captain, engineer and firefighter on duty. Four out of 10 of the county’s engines have already made the switch.
Dan Collins, CAL FIRE Butte Unit public information officer, said that three people per engine is the industry standard.
“For 30 years, we did a fine job of staffing fire apparatus with two people, but having three on an engine will increase our presence at major incidents and help provide a better service to our residents,” Collins said.
When there are three people per engine, the engineer drives, the captain sits in the passenger seat while acting as the commanding officer and the firefighter works in the back.
When there are only two people per apparatus, the engineer and the captain share duties. That means the driver is also commanding the operation. Collins said this staffing model was efficient but not ideal.
“The more help, the better. The more hands, the better,” Collins said.
So far, Upper Ridge, station 33, Nord, station 41, Kelly Ridge, station 64 and Richvale, station 71, have made the change. The other six stations in the county’s jurisdiction plan to hire more staff over the next few months.
