MOSQUITO —
Residents in Placerville’s Mosquito community said they are upset that their fire department has not hired a new fire chief in years.
“God forbid another King Fire comes. This is scary for our community, and it raises a lot of questions,” resident Kari Guthrie said.
Guthrie is the wife of a 30-year veteran fire fighter. She joined several of her neighbors at the Volunteer Mosquito Fire Protection District station for a special public meeting on Saturday morning.
Many expressed their concerns about the lack of a fire chief.
“We’ve been without a chief for almost two years,” President Ken Joseph of the Mosquito Fire Protection District Board said.
Joseph admitted, the volunteer department relies heavily on Cal Fire and the National Forest Service to assist their needs.
“The way I like to think of the Mosquito department is, we are more of an initial response department,” Joseph said. “We really rely on those other departments to be coming in, to basically help us out.”
Since the last fire chief retired, the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors asked the fire department to consolidate. Board members said they have tried many things to replace him.
They attempted to partner with another agency to share a chief. That failed. They also have searched for qualified candidates themselves. That process has taken much longer than expected.
Residents also said that they felt they were being kept out of the loop from the hiring process. Guthrie told FOX40, she was told in January of this year, “the department should have a new fire chief soon.”
Despite repeatedly asking for a status update from for the hiring, she said she has received no answer since then. She and the residents expressed their need for more transparency from the department.
During last year’s massive King Fire, the Guthrie’s were evacuated from their home. Guthrie said luckily, the blaze just missed their property by a mile.
But if something like that happened again, with no official leadership, she feels they may not be so lucky next time.
“Ken Joseph told the community,that he was the one in charge if any big incident came,” Guthrie said. “But he is not qualified. He’s a volunteer fire fighter. I am grateful for all he does for the community, but that’s not qualification for a fire chief if a big incident happens, and that scares me.”
Board members told FOX40 they understand the community’s frustrations. After all, they are also residents of the area. However, with such a tight budget, it is taking them a lot longer to find a good candidate to fill the position.
“We basically live around $300,000 a year on our tax revenue,” Joseph said. “In order to be a 24/7 we would probably need about $1 million to actually pay for that.”
Joseph said they have narrowed down the candidates list, and are currently negotiating with their number one candidate.
He said the department hopes to hire a new chief “as soon as possible.” They also said they will try to keep the hiring process more transparent for the residents in the future.
