With all due respect to my esteemed colleague (and friend) Smokey, CAL FIRE is in fact a state-level fire department. They maintain a presence statewide with the exceptions of the six contract counties Fred mentioned, and certain other counties with minimal SRA, such as Plumas and Sacramento. Every county in California is under the administrative umbrella of a CAL FIRE Unit, even the contract counties (for instance, LA is administratively under BDU, while Orange County is under RRU).
CAL FIRE is an "all-risk" fire department who equips and trains all fire suppression personnel in structural, industrial, and wildland firefighting techniques. Their academy in Ione is a fully accredited State Firefighter I academy, and includes a California POST-accredited peace officer academy.
While much of CAL FIRE's wildland resources demobilize after fire season like many other wildland fire agencies, they continue to maintain a very functional presence statewide during the winter months through Schedule A and Amador contracts (discussed elsewhere in this thread).
The department has made enormous strides from a couple decades ago when if it wasn't vegetation, they weren't interested. While almost all of their structural firefighting apparatus belong to agencies who they contract to, their wildland units also respond to all types of calls. Calls are not triaged based upon the available apparatus. For that reason, CAL FIRE has built a structural capability into its normal daily business practices. CAL FIRE is definitely not the old "Division of Forestry" that previous generations of firefighters were part of.
Thanks for the kudos David. I did not intend to slight the training and responsibilities of CAL FIRE (still can't get used to that). What I wrote and what I meant differ so I will try to explain it another. Locally in Mono County, as far as I know, when private land is subdivided a fire protection district must be formed or provisions made to add it to an existing fire district. The only LRA without a fire district exists in remote areas that have a single owner or have some other criteria applied where the LRA is not protected.
In Inyo County, at least up to recently (last 20 years or so in my book!) some subdivisions have been made where there is not a local fire district. One of these is located north of Bishop about halfway between Bishop and the bottom of the Sherwin grade. It is called "Mustang Mesa." Since I've lived in the area (28 years) a lot of homes have been built there. The CDF Bishop Conservation Camp and fire station is located about 3-4 miles away. Residents there were telling their insurance companies that CDF was their fire department because they truly believed it. They assumed that if a parcel of land did not have a fire department that the state provided it. Some of the folks I spoke with who lived there were very surprised when I told them CDF was not going to roll to their home to put out interior fires unless it was determined that it had potential to move into the SRA. Some local CDF folks confirmed that.
Some folks in Mono County expected the same, however, the Forest Service provides wildland protection for private parcel SRA land in Mono County that is within the exterior boundaries of the Inyo and Toiyabe National Forests. As you know these are called "green book" lands. Outside the Forest boundaries in Mono County the BLM provides SRA protection in exchange for the CDF providing protection for all the BLM land in the Owens Valley. But the key here is that this is for wildland fire protection and prevention only, not structural. Thus there is a lot of land, especially in Inyo County, that does not have a fire district and has one or more structures on it. These lands are generally referred to as "no man's land" by local firefighting agencies. The old, large and historic Little Lake Hotel, which was located just off 395 in the southern end of Inyo County caught on fire some years ago. CDF and the BLM responded, but the Olancha and Lone Pine fire departments did not. When CDF and the BLM did not don SCBA's and make an interior attack the owner was pretty upset. It was quite windy and the threat to wildland was there so the responding units used exterior "defensive" tactics.
My understanding of many California counties that are not as remote and on the west side of the Sierra, is that very little, if any, no man's land exists there. The southern California and contract counties, Marin County being one in northern California as well, do not have any no man's land as the entire county is a fire district. There may be others as well.
My disagreement with CDF being called the state's fire department is based on the above. If you have a structure on land outside of a fire district the state is not there to provide you structural fire protection.
State law is rather specific in defining the location of and services to be provided on SRA land. This differs from the other states I've mentioned where the responsibility and land area is not defined as well, if at all. NDF has had some contracts along the Sierra Front near Reno to provide structural fire protection, but I think they have lost most or all of those. I was under the impression that CDF did not provide structural protection unless they provided such under a contract with with a local government entity. If they are defining some actions such as interior offensive tactics as necessary to prevent spread of a structural fire to the wildland SRA then they might be providing more service now than in the past.
I've picked up on some pressure by the southern California National Forests to define "threat to wildland" in a similar manner. Congress is quite aware of this, is quite wary of a trend starting and prohibited Forest Service engines to be equipped with SCBA's for many years. Since the USFS responds to vehicle fires within National Forest boundaries to protect wildland, Congress relented and allowed the USFS to purchase SCBA's. Some of the Type III BLM/USFS engines I've looked at have those SCBA seats common on structural rigs. I've seen some equipped with a ladder or two.
There is some pressure from local counties to have the USFS more geared up for EMS responses and structural firefighting in automatic mutual aid zones outside the Forest boundaries. There is some talk about the USFS providing a wider range of EMS service for vehicle accidents and other incidents at locations (resorts, camps, private land) inside Forest boundaries that are far from a county fire station or are no man's land. As far as I'm concerned the Angeles NF should provide everything L.A. County Fire is responsible for within the Forest boundary under a contract. The USFS stations are closer and given the right training and equipment service could be improved. I'm sure some local fire folks and politicians bristle at such talk and I know the USFS Washington Office goes into a tirade every time the southern California NF's want something new to meet their unique situations.
This is my understanding of the situation and I could be in error on portions of it. As well, some things could have changed since I retired.
Sorry for the long post. This is often a fuzzy area and I would like to hear the comments from other knowledgeable people on this website.
