Volunteer firefighters may fade into history in Seal Beach, Sunset Beach and Rossmoor.
The Orange County Fire Authority Board of Directors held a study session to determine the fate of volunteer firefighter programs at the agency’s Thursday, Sept. 9 meeting.
The staff report recommended eliminating the “emergency response” role of volunteers in 11 communities, including the reserve (volunteer) programs in Seal Beach, Sunset Beach and Rossmoor.
Seal Beach City Manager David Carmany said the proposal, if approved, would mark the end of an era.
Carmany said the Fire Authority board would make its decision on Thursday, Sept. 23.
The OCFA report estimated that the changes to the reserve program would save the county fire agency $636,331 annually.
“Individual Reserve Response Performance continues to be generally low in many stations,” the report said.
“The measure of the individual station’s entire roster performance has been estimated by dividing the total number of responses by the number of reserves on the station roster. The result is then expressed in a percentage of response reliability per individual. These range from a high of 37 percent to a low of 5 percent,” the OCFA staff report said.
However, Greg Winslow, a Seal Beach volunteer firefighter who works out of Station 44 on Central Avenue, was critical of the report.
Winslow said the report did not count the number of times that volunteers were called to the station, only to have the calls cancelled because another unit arrived had the scene of an emergency.
“We have had, I think, some 60-some odd calls,” Winslow said. He said most of them were cancelled.
According to page 83 of the Sept. 9 staff report, the reserve program at Station 44 has six roster positions filled out of 20 that are available. The report said that in 2010, Station 44 responded to 64 percent of the drills and responded to 18 percent of 59 possible responses to calls.
Winslow said reserve firefighters need to live within 10 minutes of the station. He believes that should be reduced to five minutes.
The Los Alamitos Reserve unit at Station 2, at Green Avenue in Los Alamitos, had 13 roster positions filled out of a possible 25. Drills attended: 76 percent. The report said Station 2 reserves had responded to 11 percent of 851 calls.
The report said the Sunset Beach volunteer firefighter program had 11 positions filled out of 25. Sunset Beach reservists attended 64 percent of their drills. The unit responded to 13 percent of 102 calls.
Winslow said if Sunset Beach was not scheduled to be annexed by Huntington Beach, the program would not be considered for elimination.
Winslow said that a lot of reserve units don’t get enough experience because of cancelled calls.
Carmany said Seal Beach volunteer firefighters were an important part of the response to the Leisure World fire.
Winslow said the Leisure World fire would have been 10 times worse if not for the role played by the reserves.
The Fire Authority Board includes representatives of every city council in Orange County. Winslow said several council members on the board are former union firemen who are bias against the volunteers.
Winslow said the union did not like the fact that reserve firefighters are part of the OCFA.
He said in small towns, the volunteer program worked and was economic.
“For Seal Beach, I think it needs to stay,” he said.
Winslow does not believe Seal Beach can afford to have only career firefighters in town. He also said the fire engine at Station 48 (near Leisure World) is too large for some Seal Beach streets.
“Before they get rid of the program, they need to take a look at their inventory,” Winslow said.
He said he takes his crew to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station for additional training. “The career guys don’t want to play with us,” he said.
