“The state of California is not paying their fair share,” Randy Mendosa of the Arcata Fire District board of directors said last week, lamenting that the construction of Cal Poly Humboldt’s new mid-rise housing developments has left the district underequipped to handle emergencies.
Arcata Fire District laments lack of resources, California “not paying their fair share” https://t.co/SA1US3PZh8
— Times-Standard (@eurekaTS) January 23, 2025
“I’m driving by these seven-story dormitories that are going to have a thousand kids in them. How are a small group of firefighters with only two or three engines going to handle a mass-casualty incident in a seven-story building?” Mendosa asked. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
On Jan. 14, the district’s board of directors discussed potentially drafting a letter to the California state Legislature, the president of Cal Poly Humboldt and others expressing concerns over the district’s lack of resources and inability to combat fires and other emergencies at mid- and high-rise buildings on the growing campus.
“The California State University system invested close to a half-billion dollars into (Cal Poly Humboldt), that city within our city, and there are obvious infrastructure issues and the fire district was essentially not a part of that,” Mendosa said. “There’s nowhere else in the state of California that the state has infused close to a half billion dollars into a small community and not paid for the infrastructure.”
Board President Eric Loudenslager, who brought the idea to the board in December, said that the district had a responsibility to its suppression staff to make sure they have the tools, training and staffing levels required to do their job and serve their community. He noted that in an emergency, remaining silent about being under-resourced could ultimately be catastrophic.
“We have an obligation to the communities we serve, including the university, to keep them informed about whether we have the capacity to meet their needs in potential emergencies,” Loudenslager said. “And I think (with) the events down south, we have people pointing fingers (at those who) didn’t speak up, didn’t raise issues.”
The Craftsman Mall dorm project will be open to students by fall 2025. (Todd Larsen/Contributed)
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Mendosa described a scenario he had recently encountered in which local fire departments scrambled to find a ladder truck to combat a structure fire at a multi-family property. The fire was eventually extinguished by sprinklers and fire engines, but no ladder truck could be dispatched from Humboldt Bay, Fortuna or any local department.
“We’re running two firefighters in an engine instead of three. And we don’t have a ladder truck, and we have (mid-rise) buildings that the University is building,” said Mendosa, who noted that previous discussions with university administrators and state assembly members haven’t produced results.
“I think it all comes down to public safety,” Vice President Jason Akana said. “I had asked (Arcata Fire Chief Chris Emmons) ‘are there any ladder trucks in Humboldt County, Eureka, Fortuna — anything that can reach the top story of those buildings?’ And he said no. There’s not.”
Akana also discussed the idea of starting an ad hoc “agency relations” committee with regional agencies to address the public safety issues raised by the new dormitories.
Board members expressed disappointment at what its members perceived as a lack of concern from the university, and noted that they had sent a letter to the CSU system’s board of trustees on the occasion of an environmental impact report on the new dormitories. Trustees suggested that Arcata Fire District’s concerns were outside the purview of the report.
The environmental impact report (was) the only public process they had. We were confined to the only public process they had, and then … they basically said that it was irrelevant,” Mendosa said.
“We have to find someone over there (at Cal Poly Humboldt) — whether it’s in their risk management group or their student safety group, the president’s office or our legislator’s office — to have them make a commitment … that they’re going to tackle this problem,” Loudenslager said.
Cal Poly Humboldt is slated to finish construction on the first portion of its Craftsman Mall project, a tower housing 608 dormitory beds, in the fall — with an additional 356-bed tower following in spring 2026.
Loudenslager noted that building out Arcata Fire District’s infrastructure such that it could deal with emergencies in a seven-story building would most likely take three to five years.
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0571.
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