Save Santa Rosa

Stand with Santa Rosa’s fire firefighters and tell City Council to stop jeopardizing your safety.

Take Action, Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa is in danger. Santa Rosa’s fire fighters put their lives on the line every day to keep our community safe, but City Council is threatening to close a fire station, lay off twelve fire fighters, and, ultimately, put your family in harm’s way.

In the nearly 18 years since the last engine company was opened, our city’s population has grown by 23,000 and emergency call volume has jumped by more than 51 percent. Fewer fire fighters means longer response times and overburdened emergency responders, which is a dangerous and completely preventable combination that puts all of our families at risk.

Our growing city deserves excellence in public safety, but Santa Rosa’s hometown fire fighters can’t fulfill that promise without the resources they need to do their jobs.

Voters Approved More Not Less Funding for Firefighters

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Dire consequences

When elected officials gamble with our safety, we all lose. Here are just a few of the many repercussions that are coming if City Council chooses to close a fire station and lay off nine fire fighters.

Overextended & underfunded

Every fire station responded to at least 1,500 emergency calls last year. These calls don’t disappear if a fire station is closed. This cut burdens an already outstretched fire department that has seen its call volume balloon in the 21st century.

ISO status under review

Santa Rosa’s residents are kept safe by an ISO Class 1 fire department, which is the highest rating given by the Insurance Services Office. These proposed cuts could reduce this rating, impacting homeowner and business insurance rates.

Fewer paramedics, more lives lost

If City Council eliminates a paramedic unit, it’s not just eliminating public safety positions – it’s putting lives at risk. Paramedics, or advanced life support units, provide a higher level of care that saves lives in the critical time prior to a patient’s arrival at the hospital. Santa Rosa can’t afford to lose any paramedic resources.

SAFER funds in question

The fire department received a federal grant to fund the positions of 12 fire fighters for several years. If the department lays off fire fighters, it puts the funding for these positions at risk of being lost completely, which puts the city on the hook for each year of this grant.

Remembering the Tubbs Devastation 8 Years Later

In 2017, the Tubbs and Nuns fires tore through Santa Rosa destroying 5,000 homes and taking 22 lives. Two of our fire stations burned down. Nearly eight years later, they still haven’t been rebuilt.At the time, we had just 10 engines and 2 trucks. It wasn’t enough, even with every firefighter recalled to duty.

Since then:

Emergency calls have nearly doubled (from 18,000 to almost 34,000 per year)
City revenue has grown by $68 million, but no new engines or trucks have been added
Thousands of new housing units have been built or approved
Firefighter levels remain critically low, and the city is now proposing even more cuts

Santa Rosa has just 0.69 firefighters per 1,000 residents

That’s far below neighboring cities—San Francisco has 2.09 and Oakland has 1.07 per 1,000 residents.

Other cities face deficits too, but none are cutting engine companies like Santa Rosa.

Los Angeles and San Diego are increasing their fire department budgets.
We should be doing the same.

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