Fire Department needs a major overhaul, report says

The Riverside Fire Department is in need of a major overhaul that should start with the hiring of 84 firefighters.

That’s the conclusion of a 550-page report commissioned by the fire department and conducted by AT Triton, a consulting firm in Sheridan, Wyo. that specializes in public safety and emergency service projects.

Released Jan. 13, the report is based on data compiled by the department between 2020 and 2025. The study, which took nine months to compete, describes the 139-year-old department as being desperately in need of upgrades in most areas, beginning with manpower.

Right now, Riverside Fire has 225 firefighters, the same number it had seven years ago. It last built a fire station in 2007, and in the 19 years since then the demand for service has gone up about 72 percent.

The department last had an increase of frontline staff – personnel who deal directly with the public – seven years ago, despite averaging one emergency call every 11 minutes. This has strained the department’s infrastructure, and added to its workload, the study found.

At the present rate, the department’s annual call volume will rise to 71,000 by 2035, and 83,000 by 2040, according to AT Triton.

Unless the city makes major additions in staff and resources, the department will not have enough units to respond to all of the calls it receives. It will also be forced to deal with longer response times, and longer and more frequent system overloads.

In order to save lives and keep fires from spreading, the report recommends reducing response times from its current level – seven minutes and 18 seconds – to six minutes.

“We have an extraordinarily talented and very devoted department,” Fire Chief Steve McKinster said in the statement. “But the trend lines are impossible to ignore. We must take seriously the challenges we are facing.”

The first of those challenges – adding 84 firefighters – would leave the department with roughly 0.95 firefighters for every 1,000 city residents. Currently, the department has 0.69 firefighters for every 1,000 residents, a lower ratio than Corona, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale, AT Triton reported.

Nationally, the average is 1.35 for every 1,000 residents, McKinster said.

Riverside’s population, which is now 323,000, has grown approximately 2.6 percent since 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Any population growth, regardless of when or where it happens, increase the chances of wildfires because it moves urban areas closer to area susceptible to wildfires. It also brings more ignition sources – power lines, for example – into play, which creates the conditions needed for fast-spreading fires like the ones that leveled most of Altadena one year ago.

The most recent state fire maps added more than 13,000 Riverside parcels into high-risk fire areas, according to AT Triton.

“We know that wildfire season is year-round now,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in the statement. “We no longer have significant fires a few months of the year, they now come at any time.”

McKinster, who has worked for Riverside Fire since 1999, was named chief in October 2024. During the council meeting, McKinster urged the city council and City Manager Mike Futrell to find an outside agency that would produce a candid assessment of the department’s shortcomings.

The report’s findings did not catch McKinster off guard.

“Based on everything I know about the department, I wasn’t surprised,” McKinster said. “I’ve worked here for 27 years, so it was pretty much what I expected to hear. I felt like we needed an outside consultant to say that.”

During the meeting, McKinster said that fire departments “don’t fall behind all at once, they fail behind slowly, when demand goes beyond capacity. They also fall behind when systems designed for yesterday’s cities are used to protect tomorrow’s cities.”

“If we do not act, (eventually) we will not be able to deliver the level of service that the community expects and deserves.”

The council, which took no action, appeared to accepted the study’s findings but did not say how they might be paid for.

“We’ve got some work to do,” Lock Dawson said.

Riverside Fire’s operating budget for the current fiscal year is $86.2. million, a 15 percent increase from five years ago.

AT Triton is recommending that its changes, which will ultimately cost the city close to $300 million, be implemented in two phases between now and 2040. Its study does not recommend how those changes be funded, nor does it estimate the fiscal impact they could have on the city.

Riverside Fire gets much of its funding from Measure Z, a one-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016 that is scheduled to expire in 2036. Measure Z generates about $50 million annually that helps pay for public safety, including police and fire projects.

One council member gave the report, which contains an overwhelming amount of detail, a strong endorsement.

“This master plan wasn’t done by a couple of guys over the weekend,” Councilman Chuck Conder said. “This a strategic dive into the past, present, and future of the department. It clearly shows that we need more personnel.”

Conder represents Riverside’s fourth district, which includes the Mission Grove, Woodcrest, and Orangecrest neighborhoods. The fourth district is desperate for more firefighters, better equipment and modern facilities, Conder told his fellow council members.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Conder said. “Some people might say we should kick the can down the road and not worry about these things until five years from now, but I don’t think so. In the meantime, people could get hurt, people could die. Do you really want to take that chance? I know I don’t.”