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Firefighters urge council to restore Chico Fire Department staffing; residents cite response gaps
Summary
Chico Firefighters and residents urged the City Council to prioritize restoring department staffing and return Engine 1 to service, citing reduced daily staff since 2016 and recent incidents that stretched local resources.
At the council's public comment period on May 20, members of the Chico Firefighters Local 2734 Political Action Committee urged the council to make firefighter staffing a budget priority and return Engine 1 to service in the downtown district.
Jake Milley, president of the Chico Firefighters Local 2734 PAC, told council that the department’s staffing fell from 22 firefighters on duty per day to 14 per day in 2016 and has been slow to recover. Milley said lower staffing has led to delayed 9‑1‑1 response times, reduced resiliency for concurrent incidents and direct community impacts when multiple calls occur at the same time.
Mike Healy, who also spoke for the firefighters’ PAC, described a day this spring when a structure fire, a rescue and a later high‑school campus fire (Pleasant Valley High School) stretched Chico fire resources so thin that mutual aid from surrounding jurisdictions was required and local units were committed until about 1 a.m. Healy described the frequent need to “callback” off‑duty personnel to staff apparatus and said Chico responded more slowly or not at all to some calls during concurrent incidents.
Speakers asked the council to consider staffing changes that would restore Engine 1 and increase the department’s first‑alarm capacity. Council members acknowledged the public safety priority and said staffing and departmental capacity will factor into upcoming budget deliberations.
No binding council action was taken during public comment; the council included public safety staffing among workshop priorities and asked staff to return recommendations during the budget process.
Speakers' factual assertions: Milley said staffing was reduced from 22 to 14 firefighters on duty per day in 2016; Healy described the Pleasant Valley High School fire and that mutual aid resources covered Chico while local units were committed. These claims were made in public comment and attributed here to the speakers.
