Contra Costa County Fire Protection District announced that it launched its latest academy Tuesday to bring relief to a Department that has 35-vacancies which needs to be filled as soon as possible as its the start of fire season.
According to CONFIRE Chief Jeff Carman, the academy will graduate in late August to early September. They also may be adding a few more cadets (3-4) at the mid-point in July. Upon completion, the cadets will be placed in the field.
“While this is good news, the bad news is that the fire district will have to endure the first half of fire season with so many vacancies. The guys are working a lot of overtime right now to fill those vacancies. Nonetheless, we simply cannot lower our standards just to put people in the field quicker,” said Carman via email.
Carman added that the next round of hiring will be lateral hires, those working for similar sized agencies for one year or more.
“We hope that by hiring experienced firefighters we can shorten the length of the academy and get the next round of personnel into the field faster than normal without lowering standards,” said Carman.
He hopes to begin that process in the next two-weeks.
CONFIRE Promotes Three to Battalion Chief Position
Chief Carman also announced the promotion of three district employees to the rank of Battalion Chief. These hires eliminate the vacancies in the Battalion Chief rank which will allow the District to maintain an adequate level of command and control for the active fire season they envision ahead. Chief Carmen pointed out that these are promotions and not new hires.
The new Battalion Chiefs are:
- Pete Marshall
- Ed Gonzales
- Lou Manzo
“This is such a critical position we prefer to promote from within so our incident commanders have experience and knowledge of Contra Costa county specifics,” said Carmen.
