California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

Director Thom Porter

The Cal Fire executive staff includes the following individuals.[6]

• Director: Thom Porter
• Chief Deputy Director: Craig Tolmie
• State Fire Marshal (acting): Mike Richwine
• Deputy Director, Fire Protection: Joe Tyler

Firefighters employed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are represented by IAFF affiliate, Cal Fire Local 2881,[7] which represents 5,700 members within Cal Fire Local 2881 and is also associated with the California Professional Firefighters (CPF)[8] and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).[9]

Operational units are organizations designed to address fire suppression over a geographic area. They vary widely in size and terrain.

For example, Lassen-Modoc-Plumas Operational Unit encompasses three rural counties and consists of eight fire stations, one Helitack Base, three conservation camps and an inmate firefighter training center. Fire suppression resources include 13 front-line fire engines, 1 helicopter, 3 bulldozers and 14 inmate fire crews. The unit shares an interagency emergency command center with federal agencies including the US Forest Service, National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. An interagency center contributes to economies of scale, supports cooperation, and lends itself to a more seamless operation. The area has fragmented jurisdictions across a large rural area along the Nevada and Oregon state lines.[10]

Riverside Operational Unit by itself is one of the largest fire departments in the nation, with 95 fire stations and about 230 pieces of equipment. The Riverside Operational Unit operates the Riverside County Fire Department under contract as well operates eighteen city fire departments and one community services district fire department. Nine of these stations belong to the state, with rest owned by the respective local government entity. The unit operates its own emergency command center in Perris. Terrain served includes urban and suburban areas of the Inland Empire and communities in the metropolitan Palm Springs area. The area includes forested mountains, the Colorado River basin, the Mojave Desert and Interstate 10.[11]

The counties of Marin (MRN), Kern (KRN), Santa Barbara (SBC), Ventura (VNC), Los Angeles (LAC) and Orange (ORC) are paid by Cal Fire to provide fire protection to state responsibility areas within those counties rather than Cal Fire providing direct fire protection, and are commonly known as the "Contract Counties".

Lawmakers in Sacramento have mandated that every operational unit develop and implement an annual fire management plan. The plan will develop cooperation and community programs to reduce damage from, and costs of, fires in California.[12] One metric used by fire suppression units is initial attack success: fires stopped by the initial resources, (equipment and people,) sent to the incident.[13]

• Amador-El Dorado Unit - AEU / 2700 (Including Sacramento and Alpine Counties)
• Butte Unit - BTU / 2100
• Humboldt-Del Norte Unit - HUU / 1200
• Lassen-Modoc-Plumas Unit - LMU / 2200 (Including Plumas County as of June 2008)
• Mendocino Unit - MEU / 1100
• Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit - NEU / 2300 (Including Sutter and Sierra Counties)
• San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit - CZU / 1700
• Santa Clara Unit - SCU / 1600 (including Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and parts of San Joaquin, and Stanislaus Counties)
• Shasta-Trinity Unit - SHU / 2400
• Siskiyou Unit - SKU / 2600
• Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit - LNU / 1400 (including: Solano, Yolo, Colusa Counties)
• Tehama-Glenn Unit - TGU / 2500

• Fresno-Kings Unit - FKU / 4300
• Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit - MMU / 4200
• Riverside Unit -RRU / 3100
• San Benito-Monterey Unit - BEU/ 4600
• San Bernardino Unit - BDU / 3500 (Including Inyo and Mono Counties)
• San Diego Unit -MVU / 3300 (Including Imperial County)
• San Luis Obispo Unit - SLU / 3400
• Tulare Unit - TUU / 4100
• Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit - TCU / 4400 (Including portions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Alpine counties)

Cal Fire uses various apparatus to accomplish their daily responses. Engines fall under two categories, either being state-owned — mostly wildland, or city/county owned, which Cal Fire operates under contract.

For the wildland portion, most engines are manufactured with West-Mark or Westates (now American Truck & Fire Apparatus) bodies on an International chassis. Commonly seen models of wildland engines include the Model 14, and 15. CDF Models 24 and 25 were test-bed models, with only a few of each model fielded. The newest versions of these engines are CDF model 34 (4WD) and 35 (2WD), manufactured by Placer Fire Equipment, Rosenbauer, and HME. Model 34/35's are currently being fielded statewide. As of 2009 Model 35's have been discontinued and Model 34's from BME Apparatus are the new standard. Fact sheets on all of Cal Fire's current-service Type 3 (wildland) engine models can be found on the Cal Fire Web site under Mobile Equipment.

• 
  Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 14
• 
  Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 5
• 
  Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 24
• 
  Smeal Type-1 Municipal Engine, owned by San Luis Obispo County and operated by CDF under contract

Cal Fire owns its own fleet of air tankers, tactical aircraft and helicopters, which are managed under the Aviation Management Program. Additional aviation resources are leased by the department when needed. All of the fixed wing aircraft, while owned by Cal Fire, are piloted and maintained by DynCorp International. The Cal FireAir Program is one of the largest non-military air programs in the country, consisting of 23 Grumman S-2T 1,200 gallon airtankers, 14 OV-10A airtactical aircraft and 12 UH-1H Super Huey helicopters. From the 13 air attack and 10 helitack bases located statewide, aircraft can reach most fires within 20 minutes.[14]

Aircraft are a prominent feature of Cal Fire, especially during the summer fire season. Both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are employed.[15] Helicopters, or rotary-wing aircraft, are used to transport firefighting "Helitack Crews" into fire areas. They also drop water and retardant chemicals on fires. Fixed-wing aircraft are used for command, observation, and to drop retardant chemicals on fires.[16]

Cal Fire has contracted with 10 Tanker Air Carrier for three years' of exclusive use of their McDonnell Douglas DC-10 "super tanker" known as Tanker 910, at a cost of $5 million per year. Additional access is also provided to Tanker 911 and Tanker 912. In 2014 "Tanker 910" was retired and the company operates 2 other DC-10 "Super Tankers", Tanker 911 and 912 [17]

On October 7, 2014, a Cal Fire S-2T air tanker crashed while fighting the Dog Rock Fire in Yosemite National Park. The pilot was killed.[18]

• 
  Tanker 910 during a drop demonstration in December, 2006
• 
  CDF "Super Huey", formerly an UH-1H, assigned to the Bieber Helitack crew, takes off from the Mojave Airport
• 
  Cal Fire OV-10 Bronco "Air Attack 460" at Fox Field during the October 2007 California wildfires

Cal Fire uses several enterprise IT systems to manage operations. Altaris CAD, a computer-assisted dispatch system made by Northrop Grumman, is employed by each unit's emergency command center (ECC) to track available resources and assignments.[16] This is made possible through the use of an automatic vehicle locating (AVL) system which provides vehicle location, data communication, and dispatching through a mobile data computer (MDC) and a multi-network switching system in over 1200 vehicles statewide. Each operational unit has a stand-alone system which includes detailed address and mapping information.[19]