Public Safety

San Diego's Fire Resources Not Catching Up

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published September 8, 2009 at 2:55 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

One of two firefighting helicopters the San Diego Fire Department has for fighting wildfires. The helicopters can hold 375 gallons of water and can be filled in 17 seconds. They will be staffed 24 hours a day throughout the fall.

A new analysis of what San Diego spends on firefighting suggests the region has not caught up with spending in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and in fact it has fallen farther behind.

When you add up what all the various fire agencies in the San Diego region spend, it comes out to just over $150 per person. An analysis by the National University System Institute for Policy Research says that is in comparison to almost $220 dollar per person spent on fire protection in Los Angeles.

The study’s author, Erik Bruvald, says that the gap has widened since last year. He says San Diego’s political leaders need to shift existing revenues to fire protection, or generate new revenue.

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"Either option is on the table," he says, "but the sad reality is that decision makers haven’t found a way to do either of those things, and so while investment levels have increased a little bit, by no means have they made up for the deficiencies in our funding, and clearly the other two counties we bench marked against are finding ways to make firefighting a higher priority."

Bruvald says while the five largest fire departments in Los Angeles have increased by 240 personnel, San Diego’s top five have actually lost eight people.

The study was partially funded by SDG&E.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.