The California Division of Forestry and Hearth Safety will welcome 40 college students Monday to its model new firefighter coaching facility in Merced County as a part of a multiyear push to bolster its workforce.
The Atwater Coaching Heart, at a former Air Power base, joins three different coaching facilities that Cal Hearth mentioned will practice about 1,600 firefighters in 2025. At full capability, Atwater can assist 300 college students a yr to change into entry-level firefighters and firm officers, accountable for main operations within the subject.
College students “could graduate from our academy and, their next day, arrive on scene and have to command the fire,” mentioned Nicole Gissell, a Cal Hearth assistant chief who helps oversee the facilities’ curriculum.
The primary of Cal Hearth’s coaching facilities opened in 1967 with 32 college students in Ione, Calif. It served because the division’s sole coaching middle till 2017, when, in fast succession, Cal Hearth opened areas in Riverside, then in Redding in 2023, and now Atwater in 2025.
Since 2017, the governor and state Legislature have almost doubled the variety of approved fireplace safety positions at Cal Hearth, in keeping with California Division of Finance knowledge. It corresponded to a doubling of the division’s finances from $2 billion within the 2017-18 finances to $4.2 billion within the 2024-25 finances — 90% of which is devoted to fireplace safety.
A Cal Hearth spokesperson mentioned the division, as of July, has 12,223 staff, together with seasonal firefighters — already above 2024’s excessive of 11,754. The division expects its variety of firefighters to peak with fireplace season round September.
“Our training program is probably one of the best in the fire service,” Gissell mentioned, “and we’ve just been growing in the last five years to meet the demands of the department and to train all 12,000 employees.”
The brand new Atwater middle will home two of the seven cadres of fireplace instructors instructing throughout the 4 facilities. By means of a 10-week program, college students study fundamental firefighting, fireplace science, management abilities and how one can function fireplace tools.
Past school rooms, Atwater has fireplace towers, off-road driving programs and a sequence of buildings used for search-and-rescue apply. College students will spend a full week working with dwell fireplace.
Cal Hearth is actively hiring throughout its fireplace safety program, together with entry-level firefighters, heavy tools operators and battalion chiefs.
