Quick Take
The Zayante volunteer fire department has always managed to do a lot with a little. This includes generating revenue in creative ways, like sometimes covering emergency calls for neighboring Felton Fire, a district currently dealing with its own staffing crisis. Zayante maintains a full staff of trained and dedicated volunteer firefighters, but inflation-related budget cuts have reduced its paid firefighting staff to below critical levels. Measure T would bridge this gap and ensure the regular replacement of fire apparatus, writes former Zayante firefighter Daniel DeLong, who advocates its passage on Nov. 5.
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At the corner of Quail Hollow and East Zayante roads in Felton, tucked-in next to Zayante Creek, stands a small, partially vine-covered building in need of a paint job that is owned by the San Lorenzo Valley Water District. Hundreds of people drive by it every day and likely don’t even notice it’s there.
Just down the road (and harder to miss) is Zayante Fire Station #1, a large, steel structure that couldn’t contrast more with that dingy little wooden building just half a mile away. But what most people don’t realize: Starting in 1942 – and for the next nearly 50 years – that little building was the Zayante Fire Station.
It was 1989 when then-Chief Ken Boynton made a deal to trade that original fire station property (plus $1) to the SLV Water District in exchange for the 4-acre parcel where the current station now resides.
By that point, the first job of the firefighters during every weekly drill was to twist the turnbuckle that adjusted the cable that kept the front of that now rickety old building plumb and square so the apparatus door would open and close properly (or at all) because it’s kinda important for fire trucks to be able to roll out of the barn when a call comes in.
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So it was definitely time for a station upgrade.
The issue then (as now) was funding, and to build the new station (also envisioned as a community center) the community came through in 1989 by passing a 30-year bond measure with 93% voter approval.
This election – with inflation’s staggering impact – Zayante Fire Protection District is asking voters to approve Measure T, a parcel tax increase aimed at ensuring two critical things for the community: that there will always be enough firefighters to respond and that the equipment they are responding with is up to snuff.
It’s really just that simple.
Small, rural fire districts don’t have the large tax base of their city counterparts. This is why volunteer fire departments are staffed primarily by, well, volunteers. The issue is that most volunteer firefighters also have regular day jobs. This means the weekday 8 a.m.-5 p.m. hours (when on average 75% of emergency calls occur) can be pretty thin when it comes to how many firefighters are actually in the district and available to respond.
Having a staff of even just a few paid firefighters during those critical daytime hours fills that potential coverage gap, and the passing of Measure T would bring Zayante’s staffing back up to three full-time paid firefighter positions, the minimum industry standard for safe operations.
It also funds the regular replacement of older fire apparatus reaching the end of functional life. Next up for replacement in Zayante’s fleet: a water tender truck built in 1996.
Most of us don’t even drive cars that old.
So how much will this cost?
For owners of developed properties, Measure T will add $215 to the existing yearly fire protection tax rate of $75, for a total of $290 per year. That comes to $24 per month, or about 80 cents a day to ensure that when you call 911, firefighters will show up to your emergency with reliable equipment, no matter what that emergency might be.
And firefighters (paid and volunteer alike) respond to many different types of emergencies.
They fight fires, yes, but they also respond to vehicle accidents and downed wires and they perform high-angle, water and confined space rescue, are trained to tackle hazardous material emergencies and – of course – they go on medical calls.
Lots and lots of medical calls, from critical injuries that require helicopter transport to a trauma center, to simple lift-assists for an elderly person who fell down and can’t get up (a fairly common type of call in Zayante’s aging community, with more than half the residents over 55).
Volunteer fire departments perform the same services as fully paid fire departments and their continuing ability to do so is immutably tied to community support. Because in reality, volunteer fire departments are the community, from the governing board to the fire chief to the firefighters themselves.
This isn’t bloated government.
That’s literally your well-trained neighbor who shows up in the middle of the night to establish a helicopter landing zone, or render medical aid to that elderly person who fell down in their bathroom (or just help them get back into bed, if that’s all they need).
Current (and former) Zayante Fire Chief Jeff Maxwell (who started out as a Zayante volunteer in 1980) came out of retirement in 2022 to help navigate these choppy economic waters. He’s charting a lean-and-mean course, but still refusing to compromise service. It’s no simple task.
Maxwell’s current salary is significantly less than half of the $110,000 a Zayante fire chief was making only several years ago. His critically low staff of part-time paid firefighters earn just a few dollars more than the California minimum hourly wage for fast-food workers.
And the volunteers do get paid a little bit too: $12 ($14 for those trained to the level of emergency medical technician) but that’s not per hour.
It’s per call.
So whether they’re performing a lift-assist in the middle of the night or responding to a major vehicle accident or spending hours battling a house fire, a trained volunteer firefighter earns 12 bucks. A firefighter/EMT gets $14.
Payday comes once a year, during the end-of-year annual firefighter appreciation event.
On the apparatus side of things, reliance on mostly large triple-combo pumper fire engines (each now costing as much as $1 million) has shifted to smaller more specialized rigs, ones better suited to narrow, twisty mountain roads. These are the apparatus housed in Zayante Fire’s substations: Station #2 in Lompico and Station #3 on Upper Zayante Road. (ZFD is the only valley fire department that maintains three stations.)
Part of this shift in apparatus comes from lessons learned during the massive 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire, because good firefighting practices means always seeking better (and more efficient) ways of doing things.
Like how former chief Boynton managed to pull off that aforementioned parcel swap to secure a home for the new fire station back in 1989.
He also got the land graded and leveled basically for free by inviting some California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (future Cal Fire) heavy equipment operators to stop by with their bulldozers for “practice.” He partially furnished the upstairs training room of the newly constructed fire station with pews salvaged from a church. Etc.
The list of “better and more efficient” goes on and on. This has always been the course of Zayante Fire.
The fire station might have changed since those early days, but the scrappy, community-based volunteer spirit of ZFD hasn’t. Passing Measure T ensures this will continue.
“And what’s the backup plan?” I ask Chief Maxwell, as we stand in the apparatus bay of Zayante Fire Station #1, a fire station built by the community, for the community.
“We’re in the backup plan,” he says, matter-of-factly, looking out across the parking lot with a big yellow “H” painted in the middle.
It’s where the helicopters land.
The community built that landing pad, too.
Retired firefighter Daniel DeLong began his own career in the fire service as a volunteer with Zayante Fire. He highly encourages you to continue supporting the community of the Zayante Fire Protection District by voting yes on Measure T.