FRIANT, Calif. — The sun was setting in mid-September as Matt Scoralle warmed up a hefty plate of stir fry that a fire captain had passed him.
Scoralle was having his dinner at a CalFire station in the small community of Friant.
Earlier in the day, he was at a firefighting training center in the Fresno County community of Del Rey taking skills tests. He’s training to be a seasonal firefighter — but this isn’t his first rodeo.
Scoralle was a seasonal firefighter with CalFire for six months before he was laid off in June. Layoffs are a given for seasonal firefighters, though they usually occur in the winter months.
As Scoralle ate his dinner, he and Captain Paul Weaver talked about the word going around — that seasonal guys like him might transition to be year-round firefighters as soon as January.
“I've been saving a long time for a house…and the only thing I've really been waiting for is to get a permanent job,” said 28-year-old Scoralle.
“It's been something that I would really hoped that I would see at some point in my career,” said Weaver, who’s been working for 27 years with seasonal employees. “I'm going to be ecstatic if this actually goes through. Fingers crossed.”
California is looking to combat increasing wildfires by including funding for more year-round firefighters in this year’s state budget. The funding aims to transition thousands of seasonal firefighters into permanent positions as massive wildfires increasingly spark during what was previously considered an off-season. The current budget includes almost $40 million for this year and $78 million each year after that.
The funding was set in motion by state lawmakers including Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains. A Democrat from Kern County, she’s also a doctor who’s worked on fire lines.
Bains introduced a bill in January with the ultimate goal to transition 3,000 seasonal firefighters into year-round work, and State Senator Mike McGuire (D-Santa Rosa) introduced a bill in February with similar ambitions.
“Year after year, we saw the fires getting worse and worse and worse,” Bains told KVPR. “....The discussion was ‘Every day is fire season now.’”
Although state lawmakers heeded the legislation by earmarking some state funding for the cause, neither bill has passed yet – which means there’s no guarantee the funding will be included in future budgets, or at what level. Bain’s office told KVPR it would take a commitment from Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration and the state legislature every year to fund the transition from seasonal to year-round.
If either bill were to pass, Cal Fire union president Tim Edwards said the funding for the transitions could become more reliable – which he said would be essential for the state’s firefighter workforce. Bains’ bill hasn’t moved out of the assembly, and although McGuire’s bill passed in the senate, it still needs assembly approval as well.
“We can't play around,” Edwards told KVPR. “We can't nickel and dime this anymore. We have to take action. We have to be able to prepare for these natural disasters.”
Firefighters laid off at critical times
The most obvious reason for permanent transitions, according to fire officials and lawmakers alike, is the need for full-time firefighters ready to jump into action during the winter months.
“These fires, as people saw – not just in the Palisades or in the Eaton, but in the Paradise and the old Tubbs fire – those all happened at times when these firefighters were laid off,” Edwards said.
Last fiscal year, CalFire reported employing approximately 2,775 seasonal firefighters and 6,773 “permanent incident response” personnel.
Edwards said the union has been pushing for this transition for a long time, and the funding boost is a response to that. That money is crucial, he said, because the state agency responds to more incidents than just wildfires.
“We respond to medical aids, traffic collisions, vehicle fires, structure fires, commercial structure fires, hazmat situations – we respond to all of that,” Edwards said. “And when you shut down engines in certain areas, there's no engines in that area to respond, unless maybe there's a local volunteer company that then takes over. But you don't have a full-time, paid company at that time.”
Adding more year-round firefighters would increase fuel mitigation work as well, according to David Acuna, a CalFire battalion chief in the communications program in Sacramento. He said this includes removing dead standing trees and thinning out overgrown forest areas. That work, he said, is “so critical because every single year, grass grows, trees live, trees die, and we need to maintain our readiness in all those areas.”
Furthermore, Edwards thinks the promotions to year-round positions could attract more firefighters to the field.
“Recruitment would go up even more because they know if they're going to get a job. It's not just part-time,” Edwards said. “It's a full-time job.”
Acuna seconds that, and he told KVPR it would likely encourage people who are stationed in the San Joaquin Valley to stay in the Valley.
“By [transitioning seasonal firefighters], what we do is we incentivize our firefighters to stay and to promote,” Acuna said. “And that's what our goal is: to increase retention, to increase recruitment, and be able to help people justify, ‘Yes, I want to stay here because not only do I love the work, but also I've got a schedule that my family can work with.’"
Firefighters looking forward
Becoming a full-time firefighter doesn’t just benefit the state — it also benefits the firefighter. Seasonal firefighters KVPR spoke to, including Matthew Faust, said they could provide better for their families and give up side jobs. He and his girlfriend want to own property some day.
“We'd like to buy a house and preferably a little land and have a little farm,” 32-year-old Faust said. “But financially, it's a little unrealistic right now.”
Others, such as Ian Lazzarini, are itching to get back out and work their dream careers during their three month layoffs.
“Someone who's not in this business sees lights and sirens going somewhere,” the 30-year-old said. “They see it, they pull over, they yield.
“But there's someone on the other side of that,” he said. “There's a dispatcher that took the call from someone who's having the worst day of their life. And if we can come there and make it any amount better and be able to serve, I think that's something you can go home and you can sleep well and be happy about what you've done. It's very rewarding.”
Scoralle feels the same way.
“We all think this is the greatest job in the world, and we're always telling everyone to be a firefighter,” he said.
Scoralle’s path to firefighting was not a painless one. His brother died of an opioid overdose while Scoralle was a teenager. He watched the emergency personnel come to his brother’s aid, and he said it changed him. He thinks a permanent career would tie it all together.
“My brother had also talked about becoming an EMT as well,” Scoralle said. “I think it's something that my brother would have been good at, and I think it's something that he was interested in doing and would be proud that I'm doing too.”
Scoralle is doing everything he can to make this promotion happen for himself. He wore a bristly firefighting mustache to “look the part” while he aced his skills tests at the training center in Del Rey, as he wielded a hydrant and hose and sported a thick khaki suit with the CalFire logo emblazoned on it.
“That idea of becoming a permanent firefighter is always on my mind,” Scoralle said. “I never wanted to be a seasonal firefighter.”
Permanent firefighters are vital for the workforce and the community, he said — a true firefighter’s dream.
“The public just needs to see this firefighting presence, and it will put them at ease,” Scoralle said. “And it puts us at ease knowing that there's more of us.”
