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Crescent City Fire & Rescue reached the end of a journey that formally began with the adoption of a fire department masterplan in 2019 but has its roots with the late Steve Wakefield.

City Manager Eric Wier honored Crescent City’s revered former fire chief on Tuesday when he asked his predecessor, Kevin Carey, to introduce new captains Beau Smith, Everett Buell and Jason Borges to the City Council.

Each captain said they were realizing a long-standing dream.

“I’ve got to be a part of this department for a lot of years,” Smith told his former colleagues. “I talked about it with City Manager Wier when we were in our 20s about what it would be like to do this, and here we are.”

Smith, who stepped down from the City Council earlier this year to apply for one of the fire captain positions, has been a volunteer firefighter for 17 years. Carey said Smith will take on the B shift.

Borges, a Crescent City native, continued his education in Phoenix, Arizona before returning to Del Norte County. He was a senior fleet mechanic with Crescent City and is certified in heavy equipment maintenance as well as heavy truck and fire mechanics.

Borges has been a Crescent City firefighter for seven years and is a volunteer captain and an EMT.

Buell has 10 years of experience with the Kneeland Fire District, serving as firefighter engineer, captain and captain II. He’s also an EMT and has been part of the Redwood Acres Raceway fire and race crew. Buell also owns an agriculture equipment and diesel automotive repair business, according to Carey.

The Crescent Fire Protection District officially swore the fire captains in on Thursday, Carey told the Wild Rivers Outpost. According to Carey, each fire captain will work two-days on and four-days off, allowing someone to be on staff every day.

“Volunteers get the call and these captains wait for the crew to assemble and they go out and respond,” Carey told the Outpost. “We have three shifts and each of them works a rotating two-days on and four-days off. We always have someone here 24-7 now.”

The three paid captains were included in the 10-year master plan the Crescent Fire Protection District and Crescent City Council adopted in 2019. At the time, Crescent City Fire & Rescue, which serves about 20,000 residents, had been responding to more than 1,900 calls for service.

That master plan led to Crescent City’s Measure S, the 1 percent sales tax voters approved in 2020, as well as a benefit assessment for the Crescent Fire Protection District that was successful after two tries in 2021.

On Tuesday, Wier said both agencies wouldn’t have been able to hire the fire captains had it not been for community support.

“Steering this ship towards a sustainable fire department, that’s what tonight is about,” he said.

According to Carey, when Wakefield needed to retire due to a stroke the department’s battalion chiefs “stepped up and took a hold of this department.”

Carey estimated that Crescent City Fire & Rescue has about 180 years worth of experience just with its battalion chiefs.

On Thursday, Carey said last year his firefighters responded to about 2,080 calls for service and this year are on pace to receive roughly 2,400 calls.

Councilors on Tuesday also approved an amendment to the emergency and fire service agreement the city has with the Crescent Fire Protection District. This agreement stipulates how each agency will split the cost for the three paid fire captains and the fire chief.

It also includes other cost share stipulations as well as establishes a separate fund for stipend overages for firefighters whose work hours exceed the amount they can be paid for while still remaining volunteers.

“Volunteers can only earn so much per month as part of their stipend, it’s about 20 percent of what a paid firefighter would get,” Wier said, adding that one volunteer might pick up multiple shifts during a month. “At times, that causes them to reach their cap and at that point in time, they can’t receive that stipend anymore. This would create a separate fund and those funds could be used on departmental expenses.”

According to Wier, the fire chief would talk to the volunteer firefighters’ association, find out what the department’s needs are and present that as a budget item to the City Council and the Fire Protection District.

There’s currently $8,000 that’s included in the fire department’s budget that’s split between Crescent City and the Fire Protection District. Wier said he envisions a typical year would see $16,000 in that volunteer firefighter fund split evenly between the district and city.

Each member of the City Council spoke of the hard work it took both the city and the Fire Protection District to become a hybrid fire department.

“It’s been so needed,” Councilwoman Kelly Schellong said. “You guys are going to be held to a higher standard than our volunteers, but you deserve it. You have worked really hard. Your resumes speak for themselves.”

Crescent City Mayor Pro Tem Blake Inscore pointed out that he heard each fire captain say they were realizing a dream by being hired on.

“When you can match finding somebody’s opportunity to live out their dream while at the same time being able to provide the most amazing service to the community, those two things put together, that’s pretty cool,” Inscore said.

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