Cooperative Efforts

With its vast size and population, California requires a coordinated effort from multiple agencies to effectively respond to emergencies such as wildland and structure fires, floods, earthquakes, hazardous material spills, and medical aids. That is why the CAL FIRE Cooperative Fire Protection Program plays a crucial role in bringing state, federal, and local agencies together through contracts and agreements.

These agreements allow CAL FIRE to be the lead agency in providing fire, rescue, dispatch, and paramedic services to cities and towns in California that are not designated as state responsibility. This unified command relationship ensures that all resources are utilized to the fullest potential during emergencies, leading to greater success in response efforts. The CAL FIRE Cooperative Fire Protection Program staff are dedicated to coordinating these agreements and contracts, ensuring that emergency response in California is carried out smoothly and effectively.

Since the 1940s, local government entities such as cities, counties and districts have contracted with CAL FIRE to provide many forms of emergency services for their communities. CAL FIRE provides full-service fire protection to many of the citizens of California through the administration of over 100 cooperative fire protection agreements in 31 of the State's 58 counties, 38 cities, 23 fire districts and 40 other special districts and service areas. As a full-service fire department CAL FIRE responds to wildland fires, structure fires, floods, hazardous material spills, swift water rescues, civil disturbances, earthquakes, and medical emergencies of all kinds. Local governments are able to utilize this diversity and experience through their contracts and agreements with the Department. All information is subjects to change for the most updated agreements, contact your local CAL FIRE Unit.

Counties

Alameda	Fresno	Merced	San Diego	Siskiyou
Alpine	Humboldt	Monterey	San Mateo	Sonoma
Amador	Lassen	Napa	Santa Clara	Tehama
Butte	Madera	Nevada	Santa Cruz	Trinity
Calaveras	Mariposa	Placer	San Luis Obispo	Tuolumne
El Dorado	Mendocino	Riverside	Shasta	Yuba

Cities

The following Cities have Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements can be for a wide variety of services depending upon a local government entities needs. CAL FIRE provides service to all the cities listed below. Service provided to cities within Riverside County is provided through cooperative agreements with Riverside County Fire. CAL FIRE provides service to Riverside County Fire through a cooperative agreement.

Atwater	Dos Palos - MMU	Lake Elsinore - RRU	Palm Desert - RRU	Soledad
Auburn	Eastvale - RRU	Livingston - MMU	Paradise	St. Helena
Banning - RRU	Gridley	Madera	Perris - RRU	Temecula - RRU
Beaumont - RRU	Gustine - MMU	Menifee - RRU	Pismo Beach	Ukiah
Biggs	Highland	Moreno Valley - RRU	Rancho Mirage - RRU	Wildomar - RRU
Calistoga	Indian Wells - RRU	Morgan Hill	Red Bluff	Willows
Coachella - RRU	Indio - RRU	Norco - RRU	Rubidoux - RRU	Yucaipa
Desert Hot Springs - RRU	La Quinta - RRU	Oroville	San Jacinto - RRU

Italicized Cities - Fire protection provided through a cooperative pass-through agreement

Fire Protection Districts

The following Fire Protection Districts have Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements can be for a wide variety of services depending upon a local government entities needs.

Aromas Tri County	Deer Springs	Meeks Bay	South Monterey County
Cachagua	Elk Creek	North Sonoma Coast	Truckee
Cloverdale	Fresno County	North Tahoe
Coastside	Hamilton City	Olympic Valley
Contra Costa County	Higgins	Pajaro Valley
Cypress	Kelseyville	South Lake County

County Service Areas

The following County Service Areas (CSA) have Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements can be for a wide variety of services depending upon a local government entities needs.

Fresno/Shaver Lake #31

Pajaro Dunes #1

San Mateo #1

Community Service Districts

The following Community Service Districts have Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements can be for a wide variety of services depending upon a local government entities needs.

Cameron Park	Newberry Springs
Dagget	North Bay Fire
Groveland	Pebble Beach
Loma Rica/Browns Valley	Yermo
Morongo Valley

Water Districts

The following Water Districts have Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. Cooperative Fire Protection Agreements can be for a wide variety of services depending upon a local government entities needs.

Arrowbear County Water District	Metropolitan Water District
Butte County-Enhanced Hazard Abatement	Nevada County Fire Planner

Others

Firenet Lassen	Sierra-Sac Valley EMS
Northstar	Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital
Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Joint College District

Wildland Fire Agreements

The following Cities have Wildland Fire Protection Agreements with CAL FIRE. These agreements augment existing city fire department resources specifically for wildland fire fighting services.

Anaheim	Lake Elsinore	Shasta Lake
Beaumont	Lincoln	Tiburon
Calimesa	Loma Linda	Truckee
Chino Valley Independent	Murrieta	Wildomar
Colton	Rancho Cucamonga	Yucaipa
Highland	Redlands	Corona
Jurupa Valley	Rocklin	Eastvale

Under what is known as the California Master Mutual Aid Agreement, CAL FIRE assists other fire departments within the State when local resources are depleted and Department resources are available, regardless of the type of disaster. In turn, CAL FIRE can access the local government fire departments through the same agreement for assistance in wildland fire suppression.

The Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) can also request CAL FIRE assistance with non-fire emergencies when the Governor has declared a State of Emergency. Such was the case during the Northridge earthquake of 1993, Napa earthquake of 2014, floods of 1997 and the Oroville Dam incident in 2017 when CAL FIRE provided flood-fighting crews and incident management and logistical support services.

When California is under siege with wildland fires across the state and resources are stretched thin, agreements with our local government cooperators through the California Fire Assistance Agreement (CFAA) and the California Military Department provide for California National Guard resources. The local government agencies provide personnel and equipment throughout the state and the National Guard provide Fire Crews, C-130 aircraft known as Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System (MAFFS), water dropping and medical rescue helicopters, support personnel, communications equipment, and other specialized resources.

The largest of CAL FIRE's cooperative programs involves an agreement for the exchange of fire protection services with the five federal wildland fire agencies, which includes the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Parks Service (NPS) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The purpose of the CFMA is to improve efficiency by having access to federal personnel, equipment, supplies, services, information throughout the United States to help in times of disaster, when Department resources are depleted. In turn, CAL FIRE provides assistance, through interstate compact agreements to the federal and other state wildfire agencies throughout the nation. This agreements focus is on wildland fires, but if an all-hazard emergency or disaster is Presidentially‐Declared the CFMA is an avenue to utilize our federal cooperators. Additionally, having the closest agency respond to a wildfire, regardless of jurisdiction better service the citizens of California and the CAL FIRE mission.

The CAL FIRE Hand Crew Program operates CAL FIRE Firefighter Hand Crews and cooperates with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the California Conservation Corps (CCC), and the California Military Department (CMD) to staff hand crews in accordance with their respective master interagency agreements. CAL FIRE is currently authorized to operate 38 CAL FIRE Firefighter Crews, 75 Incarcerated Crews, 19 CCC Crews (including 4 Ventura Training Center Crews), and 14 CMD Crews. These crews are available to respond to all types of emergencies including wildfires, floods, search and rescue, and earthquakes. When not responding to emergencies, the crews engage in hazardous fuels reduction and prescribed fire project work to protect the community and resources of California.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is responsible for fire protection within State Responsibility Areas (SRA). SRA is found in 56 of California's 58 counties and totals more than 31 million acres.

In most cases SRA is protected directly by CAL FIRE, however, in Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, SRA fire protection is provided by the counties under contract with CAL FIRE. Known as "Contract Counties", they protect 3.4 million acres of SRA.

Under this agreement, Contract Counties are responsible for providing initial attack response to fires on SRA within their counties. CAL FIRE provides funding to the six counties for prevention and suppression of wildland fire on the SRA. This funding provides fire protection services including salary and wages of suppression crews, maintenance of firefighting facilities, pre-fire management positions, special repairs, and administrative services. Currently, the state funds 84 fire engines, 12 bulldozers, 12 hand crews, 32 fire prevention officers, and 42 positions within the 6 emergency command centers of the six counties.

CAL FIRE continues to provide other services to Contract Counties including urban forestry grants, resource management assistance, fire investigation support, and training.

Cooperative Efforts

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Contract Counties