Consolidation adds paid staff, paramedic support
There are more changes than just a new name being finalized this week at the Forestville Fire District. Following years of searching for potential partners, Forestville Fire is now consolidating with Sonoma County Fire District, a growing special district that also includes the Russian River, Windsor, Rincon Valley and others.
The consolidation is unanimously supported by Forestville Fire directors, staff and volunteers and will bring added paid staff positions, including Advanced Life Support and full-time paramedic coverage. Residents of the sprawling district will continue to pay annual parcel taxes but the increases for the added services will be mostly unchanged. Larger residential dwellings may see a 33% increase.
The local Forestville Fire Protection District board of directors will be dissolved but local representation will continue at Sonoma County Fire through regular fire chief meetings and other public sessions. Sonoma County Fire District is an independent special district that receives some funding from the County of Sonoma, grants and the local annual parcel tax payments.
Sonoma County LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) held public hearings in early 2021 and mailed notices to district property owners seeking public comment or protests about the dissolution of Forestville Fire and its consolidation with Sonoma County Fire District. On May 5, LAFCO commissioners approved a resolution to support the consolidation, citing insufficient public protests or evidence of any negative environmental impacts on the change. The official consolidation takes place July 1.
The Forestville Fire company can trace its beginnings to 1938, when local business owners and volunteers rigged a truck with firefighting apparatus and a water tank. The Forestville Fire Protection District includes 25 square miles, encompassing the communities of Forestville, Hacienda, Summer Home Park, Hilton, Wohler, Westside and Sweetwater Springs roads.
Forestville Fire’s first paid chief, Fred Riebli, was hired in 1960. Dave Franceschi is the last independent district fire chief. The position of chief at Forestville will be preserved under Sonoma County Fire and additional administrative, leadership and fire prevention positions will be added.
Fire fighting and fire prevention have undergone major challenges and changes in recent times, even before the rash of seasonal wildfires. At one time, there were as many as 40 fire departments in Sonoma County, mostly led by volunteers or incorporated by cities such as Sebastopol, Healdsburg or Santa Rosa. There are still about two dozen fire departments in the county as further consolidation efforts are moving forward.
Changing times also have reduced the availability of volunteers and the small districts are facing the need to continually increase parcel taxes to add paid staff. Forestville Fire officials, in defending the consolidation move, said district residents would be facing much higher parcel tax levels to meet increasing staffing and services without consolidation.
Most Forestville Fire district property owners now pay an annual parcel tax of $115. Under consolidation with Sonoma County Fire District, these same property owners will pay a range of $115 to $193, depending on the size of the residential structure. District residents with parcel tax questions can call the Sonoma County Fire District finance manager at 707-892-2006.
Before the heightened threat of an expanding wildfire season and the slowly dwindling ranks of volunteers, consolidation talks often stalled or were thwarted over concerns for loss of local community control. Forestville and Russian River (Guerneville) fire districts made several attempts to join forces over recent decades without eventual success, even as they sometimes shared paid staff and a chief
“It’s a very emotional thing for a board, disbanding a fire agency and combining it with another one,” said Mark Heine, chief of Sonoma County Fire. The Russian River fire district consolidated with Sonoma County Fire in July 2019. The nearby Sebastopol Fire Department is an agency within the city of Sebastopol, but is mostly staffed by volunteers. The Graton Fire Protection District remains an independent special district and is primarily funded by a $250 annual per parcel tax.
The all-volunteer Occidental Fire Department passed a $200 per parcel tax in 2019 to hire its first paid staff, similar to what the Gold Ridge Fire District did in the same year, also with a $200 per parcel tax.
The business number for the Forestville Fire station is 707- 887-2212. The website address is www.forestvillefire.org.
