Community Police & Fire

Local fire departments get reimbursed for sending firefighters to Los Angeles

Sending local firefighters to Southern California to help battle the fires enveloping Los Angeles won’t cost Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One anything. 

In fact, the local fire district benefits from the arrangement — its firefighters get training and experience that will be crucial if they ever face a major wildfire back home.

Local fire departments fully reimbursed 

Several social media commenters asked if Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One is on the financial hook for sending two firefighters to Los Angeles. Gig Harbor firefighters Jimmy Dane and Marty Pattin, along with two more from Key Peninsula Fire, are assigned to structure protection for the Palisades Fire, the largest of the fires in the LA area.

The answer is no, Gig Harbor Fire Chief Dennis Doan said. That’s true for Gig Harbor and every other department around the country that sent personnel to help in Southern California.

Local departments are reimbursed under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, an agreement approved by Congress, all 50 states and most U.S. territories. The agreement makes provisions for states to share resources during a major emergency.

It also covers reimbursement of local agencies by the state requesting aid. 

The reimbursement is robust: Along with salary and benefits for the firefighters, it covers travel, meals and equipment costs.

“If you blow a tire on scene, it includes that. They actually pay for the apparatus, too,” based on a federal rate book, Doan said. 

 On-the-job training

Meanwhile, firefighters who volunteer to deploy bring back valuable experience in the event of a conflagration here.

“Just that experience you get on a large incident is so valuable to our community,” Doan said. “Our firefighters are really getting free on-the-job training that they can bring back to Gig Harbor.”

There’s also the principal of ‘what goes around, comes around.’

“If we were to have a fire that is blowing through this community, we are going to be calling everybody for help. We only have about 25, 28 firefighters on duty every day,” Doan said. “It’s mutually beneficial for us to help our neighbors. We may ask them for help someday, too.”