Tuolumne Fire eyes massive expansion

 Tuolumne Fire District’s desire to annex 68,000 acres of surrounding land — a move that would enlarge it more than 20 times — is set to be a hot topic at Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting.

The acreage in question is currently under the jurisdiction of the county.

The fire district now takes in Tuolumne and a few outlying acres. The new area would take in the Tuolumne Rancheria to the north, and extend roughly two miles west, three miles south and eight miles east of Tuolumne.

The district is asking for the annexation, said Fire Chief Ben Oyarzo, mainly to ensure Tuolumne-area citizens can afford fire insurance for their homes. Homes that are more than five miles away from a professional, full-time fire station within their district can face outrageous insurance premiums, he said. Those that are within the wildland-urban interface miles away from a professional fire station are at risk of losing their insurance altogether, he added.

Oyarzo said the annexation issue has, in part, been pushed by Tuolumne-area homeowners who are worried about losing their insurance.

The insurance companies’ motives to deny policies are simple, according to Oyarzo: “They’re not in business to lose money.”

Oyarzo said the closer the fire station is to your home, the better the station’s equipment and the more paid staffers it has, the better your insurance rate. But that only works if the station is in your district, he said. Simply put: those are the rules of ISO, the company involved in assessing fire risk for insurance companies.

The closest professional county fire station to much of the area the district wants to annex is in Mono Village. For insurance purposes, that’s too far, according to Oyarzo.

Annexation, despite the purported benefits, might not be an easy sell. That’s because it would steer $172,000 in tax dollars away from the county’s fire department. That’s the amount the county collects for the acreage the fire district wants.

There are various fire districts in Tuolumne County, but the county has jurisdiction on the swaths of land found between them.

County Administrator Craig Pedro said shifting the funds may have an impact on the county’s fire department. He also worries that annexation is premature because a county study related to fire issues is under way.

In a Jan. 12 memo to supervisors, Pedro called the proposal “another example of the distress our countywide fire and first-responder system is in.”

To illustrate his concerns, Pedro recalled the collapse of the former Jamestown Fire District a few years ago due to financial struggles, and he mentioned pending assessments on residents of other fire districts. If the assessments fail, the fire districts in question — Mi-Wuk and Columbia — will have to downgrade their firefighting service, he said.

“The tax base of all fire districts in the county is threatened due to the weakness of the economy,” Pedro said. “Every district is facing reduced tax revenues from which to fund their services.”

Oyarzo said the annexation shouldn’t affect the county. That’s because, he said, his firefighters are already the first responders for much of the proposed annexation area; furthermore, the county will have less acreage it’s responsible for should the annexation go through.

“They won’t be hassled with every day-to-day call,” he said.

Oyarzo did share some of Pedro’s concern about funding, saying part of the reason the annexation makes sense for his district is it will make it eligible for more grant money.

He noted that though the annexation acreage is large, around 90 percent of it is land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and it would only add 1,520 residents to the district’s current roster of 1,830.

No new taxes or fees are associated with the annexation, Oyarzo noted.