Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire proposed Tuesday that state firefighters work year-round in place of the seasonal workforce the agency currently staffs for nine months each year. The increased duty for about 3,000 seasonal firefighters is estimated to cost at least $175 million.

“This escalating crisis has stretched firefighters dangerously thin,” McGuire said at a press conference in Sacramento, flanked by 21 other state senators and representatives from the union representing CalFire firefighters. “The threats to their health and safety along with the threats to local communities — they have never been greater.”

McGuire’s proposal is aimed at addressing California’s growing fire season — which typically lasted from June to October in the 1990s but is now considered to be from May through December, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CalFire.

The agency said it does not track how many fires occur outside of the extended fire season each year, but the CalFire website shows that two fires reported outside of the fire season in 2024, burning a total of 250 acres. No fires were reported on the website during the off-season in 2023. The extended season is driven in part by a hotter and drier climate according to research by civil and environmental engineers at the University of California, Irvine.

CalFire has about 6,100 permanent employees, in addition to the 3,000 seasonal firefighters who are typically laid off between January and March.

“For three months out of the year we downstaff one-third of our engines because of an inadequate way of staffing CalFire in today’s world,” Tim Edwards, president of the union representing CalFire firefighters, said at the press conference. “There is no fire season in California. Fires are year-round, as we just witnessed” in the Los Angeles area.

The rare January wildfires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades killed 24 people and damaged about 16,000 homes and businesses. The state brought in firefighters from Portland and Houston, as well as from Canada and Mexico.

CalFire did not have a comment on McGuire’s proposal. But Jesse Torres, a battalion chief and spokesperson for the agency, said that more staffing wouldn’t necessarily help fight the Southern California fires due to the high winds that caused flames to spread quickly. He said a larger, year-round staff would allow more prevention work and allow firefighters to take time off.

Under McGuire’s proposal, the seasonal firefighters would be transitioned to year-round employees, and the agency’s 356 fire engines would be operational all year.

The governor vetoed a similar bill last year by Sen. Tim Grayson, a Democrat from Antioch. Newsom wrote that the state was already in the process of hiring 2,000 additional year-round firefighters because of staffing levels required in the Cal Fire union’s most recent contract, and he wrote that state civil service laws would require the temporary firefighters to apply for the permanent positions.

Asked for comment on McGuire’s proposal, the governor’s office said it does not typically comment on pending legislation. McGuire said at the press conference that his new plan would address the governor’s concerns around the legality of transitioning from seasonal to full-time by creating a new employee classification.

“We were moving at a pace that nature didn’t wait on, and the wildfires didn’t wait on,” Grayson told CalMatters Monday about last year’s bill. “We are learning that climate change continues its march forward at a pace that we must catch up to.”

The office of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas did not respond to a request for comment on the Senate proposal.

There’s also the cost question: McGuire said the effort would be funded by the state’s general fund and would require negotiations through the budget process.

The budget is not finalized until June, however – so McGuire said he hoped his plan could move more quickly.

“I think the vast majority of Californians would like to be able to see this investment yesterday,” said McGuire, who represents the state’s fire-prone North Coast from the Bay Area to the Oregon border.

McGuire’s proposal is the latest in the Legislature’s effort to help those impacted by the wildfires in Southern California.

The Assembly unveiled a wildfire-related package last month aimed at housing recovery, including a bill to pause most new building standards, one that would accelerate state housing permit reviews and another that would ease permitting in coastal areas for accessory dwelling units.

Last week, in an effort shepherded by the governor, the Legislature also approved $2.5 billion to state and local agencies to help them oversee recovery.

The Senate Republican Caucus, representing nine of the 40 state Senators, also unveiled its own wildfire-related proposals Tuesday. The GOP plan focused on water storage, tax credits to homeowners for efforts to fireproof their properties and longer sentences for fire-related crimes.

“While Senate Republicans are encouraged by the initial bipartisan nature of the Senate’s response to the Los Angeles wildfires thus far, they remain wary of potential partisan pitfalls for this critical legislation as the plethora of past efforts have largely been blocked by legislative Democrats and the governor in years past,” the caucus said in a statement.

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.