At a time when wildfire season is rapidly approaching – the best course of action is to ensure we have enough firefighters to get the job done. Currently, the number of firefighters in the Moraga Orinda Fire District has dropped to such a critical low that there aren’t enough to staff all the equipment to keep you as safe as possible.

The number of firefighters has reached a point where they can’t be on the fire engine and ambulance at the same time. That means when a fire engine is needed, an ambulance is not available, and when an ambulance is responding to an emergency, a fire engine can’t respond.

Your firefighters can’t be in two places at once, and unfortunately, this has already proved disastrous. At a recent fire, an Orinda home burned while the nearest engine sat without firefighters because they were on another emergency with the ambulance.

Up for discussion is an idea that could potentially remove firefighters from ambulances in favor of medics who only handle medical emergencies. Keeping firefighters on these ambulances allows the department to be more effective and cost-efficient, since they’re multi-faceted, multi-talented, and are qualified to fight the fire, provide medical services, and more.

When it’s your emergency, you want every firefighter possible to come to your door.