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Following a recommendation from public safety coordinator Roy Morales to the San Juan Bautista City Council, the city held a town hall meeting on Feb. 22 to provide an overview of fire services in San Benito County. Along with Morales, Hollister Fire Chief Jonathan Goulding and Chief George Nunez of Cal Fire’s San Benito/Monterey Unit made presentations to the nearly 100 people in attendance.
Following the meeting, held at San Juan School, Morales told BenitoLink, “I felt it was a chance to better inform the residents of the city of San Juan Bautista and those in our surrounding areas who are affected or somehow serviced by Station Four, located here within the city.”
According to Goulding, the current relationship with Hollister Fire Department began in 2013, when HFD was contracted for countywide fire services after Cal Fire decided not to renew its agreement. The contract with Hollister was renewed in 2015 and 2019.
San Juan is protected by Fire Station 4, a city-owned station on the corner of Polk and Second Streets next to City Hall. There are four engines, two owned by San Juan Bautista and two owned by the city of Hollister. Goulding said proximity to the station is critical in case of any fire in the area, as the next closest station is 15 minutes away.
He presented a timeline that clarified how quickly a fire can spread in a two-story home, from the first 30 seconds of the fire being detected to a minute later, when the temperature inside can reach 190 degrees. After two and a half minutes, the temperature can reach 400 degrees. The house would be engulfed at four and a half minutes, and temperatures can reach more than 1,400 degrees.
Goulding said that San Benito County is also particularly vulnerable to wildfires, with over 98% of the county at risk. Though some of those fires are within Cal Fire’s purview, fires in the broader area often tie up its resources.
“I am surprised at the number of people who think Cal Fire can come and save us,” Morales said. “People just believe that because there’s a station outside Hollister at the airport. But the time it takes to get here is one thing, and Cal Fire will not do it anyway.”
Cal Fire will release new Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for San Benito County in March.
Hollister Fire Department has four stations in total. The other three are on Fifth Avenue, Valley View Drive and Aerostar Way. Each station is staffed by three personnel, and there is also one on-duty battalion chief for a total suppression strength of 13 people. According to Goulding, calls to all stations increased from 4,005 in 2018 to 5,144 in 2024, a 28.4% increase over seven years.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, the average ratio for professional fire departments in the United States is 1.54 to 1.81 firefighters per 1,000 people. Goulding said that Los Angeles, reported by CNN to be “among the most understaffed in America,” has less than one firefighter per 1,000 people. In Hollister, the number drops to 0.6 firefighters per 1,000 people.
Goulding said expanding the force by adding volunteers would not save money in the long run because a 2007 bill, SB 1207, requires volunteers to have the same amount of training—528 hours—as a career firefighter.
During his presentation, Nunez detailed some budget-busting equipment expenses, saying inflation has dramatically increased prices and that firefighters need multiples of some items that must be replaced every 10 years.
“Turnout coats went up 40%,” he said. “That’s a couple thousand dollars right there. Every one of my firefighters has two. They have to have the pants, they have the boots. All in all, the total cost of outfitting a firefighter is roughly $10,000. And it gets more and more and more and more expensive.”
Nunez said anything designated for firefighters automatically has a higher price and that the department faces liability if it does not use fire-rated or up-to-date outfits and equipment.
“Our ropes and the tools need to be rated for the type of rescue we do,” he said. “All these items have a lifespan no matter how often we use them. And whether we use them or not, we must throw away the expired items and buy them again.”
Goulding presented an accounting of calls made to Station 4 in 2024, showing the county’s heavy reliance on San Juan’s services. He said that of the 626 calls which had been responded to, only 281, or 45%, were within city limits.
Former city manager Don Reynolds, in a similar analysis of responses to calls from Jan. 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024, which he presented to the City Council in August 2024, came up with a similar result: 46% of the calls served San Juan, 54% served the county, and the balance (4%) was split between the city of Hollister and Monterey and Santa Clara Counties.
Friction with the county
The number of calls outside San Juan city limits became the subject of a tense exchange between Council member and former firefighter Scott Freels and San Benito County Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez after Velazquez claimed that the county “subsidized” the San Juan station.
“I can tell you if you paid for it straight out, you’d be paying about $3 million,” Velazquez said. “Right now, you’re paying about $400,000 to $500,000 or less. You’re being subsidized. And you know what? That’s OK. You play an important part in this county on the Western side.”
A visibly irritated Freels responded: “News flash: the County of San Benito does not own a fire station in this entire county.
“If the county needed to put a new station at Rancho Larios or the mouth of the canyon,” Freels said, “it would cost $20 million. Well, this is a push, sir. It’s a push. You don’t own a fire station. The people are being protected on the northwest side of the county by a fire engine coming out of our station. So it’s a push.”
Towards the end of the meeting, San Juan Mayor Leslie Jordan and Morales raised objections to Velazquez and Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki about being refused a seat at the table during the ongoing fire services discussions between the city of Hollister and the Board of Supervisors, repeating complaints made during previous City Council meetings. Goulding said he has also been excluded from the talks.
“We are not invited,” said Jordan. “We have asked to come to the table. We have been asked not to attend. You can write to your supervisor or the city of Hollister and ask them why.”
In response to a question on that point from an attendee, Velazquez said that what has been discussed is more of a financial rather than technical nature and that “the expertise is going to be coming in as we move forward to the next steps on how we work together and make sure we have a program that’s working.”
Morales told BenitoLink he was pleased with how well the town hall was attended. “I thought the presentations were very good,” he said. “We want people to be educated on their fire services, how things are working, who is actually contracted to provide them service, and I thought that it was well explained.”
The city of San Juan plans to post the video of the town hall on its YouTube channel, where it also posts Planning Commission and City Council meetings.
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