SB 955, a bill by Senator Nell Soto (D – Pomona) to enhance the disaster and emergency response capabilities of state and local fire agencies, is scheduled to be heard in Senate Appropriations Committee Monday, May 9.

SB 955 builds on the experiences of agencies involved in combating the California firestorms in the Fall of 2003, and seeks to implement some of the recommendations of the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, appointed by former Governor Gray Davis and current Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the wake of those devastating fires.

Soto was a member of the commission, which noted that while fire agencies had adequate numbers of personnel to respond to the blazes, most lacked sufficient equipment to do so. Commissioners recommended that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection modernize and update its fire and multiple response apparatus, in large part to “further embrace the federal government’s commitment to partner with the state in equipping our nation’s fire service front line homeland defenders,” and said that it would be in the public interest to use a portion of California’s allocation of federal Homeland Security funds for this purpose.

SB 955 would require the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) to use $25 million in Homeland Security funds toward the purchase of 150 additional “multiple discipline response” engines – able to respond to fires as well as any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosives incident.

SB 955, which previously passed the Senate Governmental Organization Committee on a bipartisan vote of 9-2, further requires the director of OES to assign the engines to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as well as to local agencies.