Letter: Prepare for Today’s Wildfires, Not Yesterday’s Departments
The larger concern for me is whether our current fire service structure is truly prepared for the kind of wildfire behavior we are now seeing in California.
Wind-driven fires, extreme fire weather, rapid ember spread, evacuation complexity, and year-round fire seasons have changed the landscape dramatically over the last couple of decades. These incidents require advanced training, regional coordination, sophisticated equipment, communications systems, vegetation management, evacuation planning, and sustained staffing capacity.
I deeply appreciate the volunteers who step forward to serve their communities. But appreciation should not prevent honest conversations about whether small volunteer agencies remain the best model for today’s wildfire realities.
Public safety planning needs to be based on current risk, operational capability, and long-term sustainability — not nostalgia for how things worked decades ago.
Jennifer Gómez, Lompico
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