DEL MAR — The cities of Del Mar and Solana Beach are blazing a new path via a shared management agreement to operate their respective fire departments, including hiring a new permanent fire chief to lead the next steps of the process.
On Thursday, city officials confirmed that Vista Deputy Fire Chief Bret Davidson will be the new fire chief for Del Mar and Solana Beach, effective May 18. Davidson will be relieving interim fire chief Colin Stowell, who came out of retirement in December to temporarily support the two cities in creating a new fire management structure.
Davidson currently serves as Vista’s deputy fire chief and has 39 total years of fire service experience, including with other departments in Pine Valley, El Centro, Poway, and Rancho Santa Fe, as well as cooperative regional efforts involving coastal communities.
He said he looks forward to teaching and mentoring fire professionals so they can advance in their careers, and applying his experience with fuel mitigation efforts in Vista to fire-prone areas along the coast.
“Solana Beach and Del Mar are both great communities,” Davidson said. “They both believe in transparency and they each have a unique culture in their communities. Both cities are aligned in their core values and both city managers have a good relationship, so I’m looking forward to it.”
In his first few months, the new chief will focus on hiring permanent fire management staff, the city of Del Mar said in a statement. He will also facilitate Fire Prevention Month in June to help prepare the local community for the fall fire season.
After several months of planning, Del Mar and Solana Beach agreed last week to operate their fire departments under a seven-person shared management structure, including a fire chief, a management analyst, a fire marshal, two fire prevention specialists, and two battalion chiefs.
These seven staff members represent the bare minimum number of personnel needed to manage the two fire departments, Del Mar leaders emphasized at the City Council’s April 21 meeting.
“There is a lot of duties and responsibilities that this very lean staff will be responsible for,” said Del Mar City Manager Ashley Jones.
Under this interim cost-sharing agreement, the two cities will split the approximately $1.7 million cost for the seven positions equally. The cities will revisit the topic as the shared management agreement continues.
The new structure follows after the end of a 15-year cooperative fire services management model between the fire departments in Del Mar, Solana Beach, and Encinitas. The three departments previously shared and split costs for management staff, with Encinitas providing the majority of executive fire management.
The agreement ended in March, after the Encinitas Fire Department announced last year that it could no longer support the shared model and needed to focus solely on the city of Encinitas.
The Del Mar City Council approved the new staffing agreement in a 3-1 vote, with Councilmember Dan Quirk opposed. Quirk said he preferred to wait until after budget discussions had taken place.
“I’m not gonna vote for this tonight because I really feel like we should have the full budget viewed first … It’s not that I don’t think it’s incredibly important to have a great fire department,” Quirk said.
Jones said approval was essential to start filling the management positions. Del Mar is responsible for hiring one fire prevention specialist and the fire marshal.
Both cities will conduct internal promotional testing in May to fill the two battalion chief roles.
Del Mar will pay roughly twice as much as under the old cooperative agreement for shared management under the new model — about $850,000 annually versus about $400,000 previously.
However, this model will be much more beneficial, and the city will be able to meet many more of its fire-related needs, especially in fire prevention, Jones said.
While Solana Beach and Del Mar will share the costs of these management positions, the two cities will maintain their existing firefighting “floor” crews, composed of firefighter-paramedics, engineers, and fire captains. This includes nine personnel in Del Mar and 18 in Solana Beach.
Each city will also maintain its own fire engines and other apparatus, as well as its own fire stations. The fire chief will be based out of the Solana Beach station.
The chief will be supported by the two battalion chiefs and a management analyst. Battalion chiefs will be responsible for daily emergency management and administrative duties, such as community outreach, training and recruitment, facilities and fleet management, emergency medical response, and coordination with the San Dieguito EMS District (CSA-17).
The fire marshal, with the support of two fire prevention specialists, will lead the fire prevention division, which oversees property inspections, fire code compliance, fire investigations, the Wildland-Urban Interface areas and high fire severity zones, brush management, and public outreach and education.
Stowell said the fire marshal is a specialized role that is more important than ever, as they coordinate with other departments and external agencies and must stay up to date on rapidly changing fire prevention best practices.
“They fall outside of what the fire chief can keep up with on code changes, dealing with other departments,” Stowell said.
One fire prevention specialist will be assigned to each city to complete inspections, coordinate with fire prevention crews, and conduct public outreach and education.
These efforts are especially important following the recent release of updated fire hazard severity zone maps in California. While only a small portion of Solana Beach falls within a moderate, high, or very-high severity zone under the new maps, a majority of Del Mar’s city boundaries fall within a very-high severity zone.
Properties within these zones must meet vegetation management requirements, including clearing dead and flammable brush within a specified distance of the main structure. Fire prevention staff are responsible for ensuring that property owners are aware of and comply with these requirements.
“Our high-risk maps have just changed. and that poses unknowns for additional prevention and management and unknowns for suppression as well,” said Councilmember Terry Gaasterland.
Del Mar Mayor Tracy Martinez thanked the interim management staff who came out of retirement to support the two cities during their transition. Along with interim chief Stowell, the two cities had the help of interim fire captain Hans Schmidt, who previously served as fire marshal for Solana Beach, Del Mar, and Encinitas under the old cooperative agreement.
