IRVINE : City Weighs Joining New Fire District

The Irvine City Council will consider joining a proposed regional fire district Tuesday that would replace fire service now offered throughout the county.

If the plan to create a 16-city Orange County Fire Protection District succeeds, the new district would simply take over fire services now administered by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said Larry Larsen, executive assistant to the city manager.

The county would remain part of the new fire district but would only have one vote on the governing board, Larsen said.

“The normal citizen won’t even notice a transition,” Larsen said of the proposed change. “It’s more on paper than anything. It’s not as if the Orange County Fire Department is going to be disbanded.”

Current county firefighters would become employees of the new fire district.

Cities served by the county Fire Department began talking about a fire district so that municipalities would have more control over how fire services are offered, Larsen said.

When the Orange County Fire Department was formed in 1980, more than half of its services were provided to unincorporated county territory. But with new cities forming in South County and some established cities disbanding their fire departments to contract with the county, 83% of the residents served by the county Fire Department now live in cities, Larsen said. Those cities, however, have no authority over how fire services are offered.

The move toward district regulation also is in reaction to a past attempt by the county to levy per-call paramedic fees to residents using the service. The cities balked at the fee but it highlighted the lack of authority cities have in making those decisions, Larsen said.

Under district regulation, cities would have representatives on a governing board. The district would also have the authority to tailor services to levels requested by individual members, Larsen said.

The cities must accept whatever service level is offered under the current service offered by the county Fire Department.

Before the proposed fire district can be created, city councils for all 16 cities considering the fire district must vote to approve participation. The councils are all expected to vote this month and next month.

Besides Irvine, the participating cities are Cypress, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, Villa Park and Yorba Linda.

Four other cities contract separately with the county for fire services through direct cash payments rather than property taxes. Those cities would be served by the new fire district but would not be included on the governing board. Those cities are Placentia, Seal Beach, Stanton and Tustin.

The councils of those cities would also have to approve the service switch, Larsen said.