California fire season is coming. And firefighter ranks have plunged 20%
Last year, as California’s fire season exploded with such monsters as the Caldor and Dixie fires, 60 wildland fire engines across the state sat idle. Others ran only part time. There simply wasn’t enough firefighters to staff them. The shortage of engine crews, documented in interviews with employees and records obtained by The Chronicle, is part of a broader, and potentially dangerous, decline in the number of federal firefighters stationed in California.
Related article:
- San Francisco Chronicle: Last year’s fire season in California set record for cost, Dixie Fire most expensive in U.S. history