Napa making “massive change” to volunteer firefighting program

Fire Administrator Dave Shew and Fire Chief Mike Marcucci on Tuesday explained the reorganization to the county Board of Supervisors. While supervisors seemed supportive, some volunteers voiced concerns.

“At the end of the day, this is really about public safety,” Shew said.

Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said he will measure success and failure by how many volunteers there are and whether the system is less bureaucratic.

“I think the proof is in the pudding here,” said Supervisor Anne Cottrell, who asked for an update in a half-year.

Chris Morisoli, a volunteer with the Rutherford station, said the changes will diminish the volunteer departments’ standings. He can foresee “a great loss for the taxpayer, but a win for the fire-industrial complex that we see favoring a state solution for a local problem.”

Napa County contracts with Cal Fire to run the county fire department. Cal Fire works with five full-time paid stations and nine volunteer fire companies covering such rural areas at Carneros, Dry Creek, Carneros and Pope Valley.

Several changes are coming for the volunteer companies. Titles will be changed to align with best practices and reduced liability. For example, volunteer fire chiefs will become volunteer fire lead captains who will report to paid county battalion chiefs.

The nine volunteer fire departments will become Napa County Fire Department stations. New volunteer agreements will be made with each volunteer. The stipend policy for volunteers will be updated, county reports said.

“New organization provides clarity for chain of command in conformance with today’s fire department standards,” a county report said.

Supervisor Belia Ramos appreciated that point. Fire departments have paramilitary command structures. During a wildfire or flood, people need to know who the chief is and there can be only one chief, she said.

“When it comes to an emergency structure, we need to know who’s on first,” Ramos said.

Morisoli offered a different view during public comments and after the meeting. He saw the volunteer chiefs show leadership during the 2020 fires to save lives and property, he said.

During that disaster, volunteer fire chiefs were instrumental in coordinating, gathering intelligence and sharing resources. Some fire chiefs have served more than 30 years and know every gate and every access point, Morisoli said.

“We helped save a lot of homes and a lot of wineries that would have been lost if our crews and our fire chiefs weren’t working to prevent that,” he said.

Cal Fire battalion chiefs won’t have the same continuity, he and another volunteer said.

“They come and they go,” a Soda Canyon volunteer told supervisors. “They may be from the county and they may not.”

Morisoli is a farmer at his family’s Morisoli Vineyard in the Rutherford area. He became a volunteer firefighter in 2002, though he joined the Army and went to places as Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ken Van Oeveren is fire chief with the Dry Creek volunteer department. He voiced no objections to the changes, but also said his department is different than some of the others. The Mount Veeder Fire Safe Council has taken over the role of working with that community.

“If you want to call me some other kind of chief or just a captain, that really doesn’t make much difference to me,” he told supervisors. “I’m going to work the same way. I’m going to talk to same people, I’m going to accomplish the same job.”

Shew noted that various county grand juries over the years have called for changes in the volunteer firefighter program, most recently the 2023 grand jury.

“This is not a new idea, a new concept that just has just erupted,” he said.

He also noted this will be a major transition.

“This is a big lift,” Shew told supervisors. “This is a massive change in the way we do business and there are a lot of moving parts.”