Oceanside\u2019s Fire Department has started a program for part-time hand crews that it will share with agencies throughout the region to clear brush for fire prevention and, in some cases, could help fight wildfires.<\/p>\n
The department added a new job classification called \u201cfuels crew member\u201d that the Oceanside City Council approved last year to assist with fire prevention. The job is also a way to train recruits for full-time fire department careers.<\/p>\n
The City Council authorized $300,000 in seed money for the program from Measure X, Oceanside\u2019s voter-approved temporary sales tax. It also received a $100,000 grant from San Diego County\u2019s Neighborhood Reinvestment Program and $35,000 from the San Diego Regional Fire Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to bill partner agencies for services rendered,\u201d said Deputy Fire Chief Jess Specht in a presentation March 25 to the City Council. \u201cCost recovery will be a big way for this to become a self-sustaining entity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City Council unanimously approved a resolution at the meeting to allow the Fire Department to use the crews in Oceanside and with other agencies in the region on a cost-recovery basis, along with a chart of fees for the various services.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now they are what\u2019s called a fuels mitigation crew, where we can go out and do brush abatement, brush clearance, creating defensible space around city properties,\u201d Specht said. \u201cThe goal is to transition them through training \u2026 to be able to respond to fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camp Pendleton and agencies in Valley Center and Vista have expressed interest in the service, Specht said. The crews also could work for agencies such as Oceanside\u2019s water district\u00a0that need brush cleared.<\/p>\n
The city had about 400 applications for 18 openings in the program, he said. The crew will not be used to fight active fires until it has more training.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Eric Joyce called it an innovative program that could become \u201ca pipeline to getting people into the fire service.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have this program \u2026 and all of these people want to give you money for it, so that\u2019s a really good sign,\u201d Joyce said.<\/p>\n
Cost recovery will occur through project-based service agreements that reimburse the Fire Department for personnel, administrative and equipment costs associated with providing the service, states a city report.<\/p>\n
Hourly rates on the schedule range from $19.15 for individual mutual aid crew members to $111.80 for a battalion chief, it states, which is the city\u2019s approved pay rate for the positions. There\u2019s also an administrative fee of 25.93%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oceanside\u2019s Fire Department has started a program for part-time hand crews that it will share with agencies throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[109384,32207,109385,109383,18332,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-244063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-brush-removal","9":"tag-fire-mitigation","10":"tag-hand-crew-program","11":"tag-hand-crews","12":"tag-oceanside-fire-department","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}