City resources respond to fires throughout the State.
City wildland fire engines are first due to State areas east of the city limits.
City engines protect homes from encroaching wildland fires.
OES Engine 297 is assigned to Chico Fire Station 6.
OES Engine 294 is assigned to County Fire Station 44 on Fair Street.
City aerial ladder trucks respond to county commercial structure fires.
A CDF dozer responds to high level vegetation fires in the east side of the city.
CDF wildland engines respond to vegetation fires along the eastern edge of the city including Bidwell Park.
Mutual Aid
The State Master Mutual Aid Agreement, signed by Butte County and the five cities, establishes a framework that allows agencies to share resources when they have exhausted their own. The giving of mutual aid is voluntary with the decision normally based on the ability of the giving agency to maintain reasonable protection of its own jurisdiction. Most agencies provide short-term mutual aid for free so that they will receive it in the same way when they inevitably have a major emergency. It is the normal practice that mutual aid resources are released from an emergency before the resources of the jurisdictional agency. Resources from the farthest away are usually released first. Federal firefighting resources are not a part of the California Master Mutual Aid Agreement.
Mutual aid may be managed bilaterally between agencies with contiguous boundaries where individual agreements may apply or through the Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid System. At the local level, the chiefs of the fire departments in each county elect an Operational Area Fire & Rescue Coordinator every three years. There is usually also an Alternate Coordinator who fills the role of Coordinator in that person's absence. The dispatch center of the Coordinator is normally designated to administer mutual aid requests within the county or from outside. Currently in Butte County the Coordinator is Chief George Morris of CDF/Butte County Fire Rescue and the Alternate is Chief James Beery of Chico Fire.
The four primary functions of the Operational Area Coordinator are:
- Working with the other Fire Chiefs, establish policies and procedures that guide mutual aid within the county.
- Provide fire and rescue mutual aid resources from within the county to an in-county agency that has exhausted its own resources.
- Request mutual aid resources from the Regional Fire & Rescue Coordinator when mutual aid within the county is insufficient to meet the need of an in-county requesting agency.
- Provide mutual aid resources to agencies outside the county at the request of the Regional Fire & Rescue Coordinator.
The state is divided into six Fire & Rescue Regions. The Area Coordinators elect the Region Coordinator. Butte County is part of OES Region III which encompasses the 13 counties of northeastern California from Sutter, Yuba, and Sierra Counties to the Oregon and Nevada borders.
Free mutual aid is usually less than 12 hours duration, but may occasionally last longer. In some cases, such as disaster declarations, the state or federal government may subsequently pay for actual expenses in whole or in part.
California Office of Emergency Services fire engines are requested through the Mutual Aid Sysytem, but are under the terms of bilateral agreements between the assignee and the state. There are two OES engines assigned within Butte County. OES 294 is assigned to County Fire Station 44 in South Chico and Engine 297 is assigned to Chico Fire Station 6 in West Chico. There are 105 OES engines and 12 OES water tenders assigned throughout the state.
The Chico Urban Area Fire and Rescue Agreement (CUAFRA)
The Board of Supervisors and the Chico City Council unanimously entered into CUAFRA in June of 1999.
The key components of the Agreement are:
- Closest engine response to all emergencies within the service area (click to see map)
- Sharing of specialized emergency resources such as aerial ladder trucks, fire bulldozers, water tenders, wildland fire engines, and volunteer firefighters.
- Staffing of City Fire Station 6 on the west side of the railroad tracks at Highway 32 and W. East Avenue.
- Establishment of ideal future City and County fire station locations for the northwest corner of the county that avoids facility and staffing duplication.
- Guidelines for a logical transition of the Urban Area from county to city fire protection, as station first due areas become majority-incorporated population.
An Operational Letter of Understanding approved by the Fire Chiefs, City Manager and Chief Administrative Officer guides daily functioning of the Agreement.