Cal Fire

The Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honored CalMatters’ work.

Facing a mental health crisis, Cal Fire crews sought less of a workload. But they have to wait two years under their new contract.

Moderate weather and well-timed rainstorms in much of California combined to curb the acreage and structures burned.

Cal Fire faces a mental health crisis. As wildfires burn year-round, thousands of overworked California firefighters carry a heavy load of trauma, pain and grief. They leave a fire but the fire never leaves them.

Strong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.

“I felt trapped.” For months, a firefighter kept reliving her colleagues' screams when a Mendocino County wildfire encircled them. On the day she planned to take her life, she got help instead — just in time.

About 10% of Cal Fire’s workforce quit the agency last year. “We are at critical mass, guaranteed,” one Cal Fire captain said. Workers’ comp cases for PTSD are routinely denied, and many crews are fatigued from working weeks at a time with no time off.

A smoldering crisis has emerged at California’s firefighting agency, Cal Fire.  As blazes intensify and California’s fire season grows longer, firefighters are increasingly fatigued, traumatized and overworked. In her stunning five-month investigation Trial by Fire, CalMatters reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Julie Cart uncovers a severe and unaddressed mental health crisis at Cal Fire.  Despite […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom has misled Californians about what the state has done to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

Why can’t California utilize prescribed burns that everyone knows are key to restoring biodiversity and resilience?