Calif. County to Address Wildfire Threat With Partnership

Seeing a need to recruit and train firefighters, Marin County, Calif., officials are planning a partnership that would include a new training center and dormitory to train and house fire recruits in response to the ever-growing wildfire threat in the state.

The Marin County Fire Department and the College of Marin will collaborate initially on designing the project after county supervisors approved spending $1 million to get it underway.

The project would use a renovated 11,000-square-foot structure built in 1975 to house up to 20 firefighters on its second floor, and use the first floor for an additional 40 or so seasonal firefighters, as well as showers and a kitchen.

A new training center would be constructed in an empty lot near the college and would include a storage room for equipment and maintenance.

The partnership and ensuing recruitment program would provide housing for personnel of the FIRE Foundry training program. FIRE Foundry provides training and expanded fire crews funded by the state to help with increasing fire danger.

“It just makes so much sense to work with the college,” Chief Jason Weber of the Marin County Fire Department told the Marin Independent Journal. “We have a lot of alignment around developing a workforce and workforce housing.”

The FIRE Foundry program is currently housed in a former fire station in San Rafael along with all the required equipment, and more room is needed. Some of the recruits live there during the week, Weber said. “It’s a little tight for us.”

The program services two purposes: It develops equity by increasing the number of women and people of color in the county fire department, and it addresses the urgent need for more firefighters.