Beristianos retires from Northshore Fire chief job
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – After seven years filled with major wildland fires, the Northshore Fire Protection District’s chief has retired.
Jay Beristianos, who grew up in Upper Lake, has been in the fire service for 42 years professionally, plus additional time as a volunteer. He served in the U.S. Forest Service in 1978 and 1979. Later, he spent 21 years with Ukiah Valley Fire.
He became Northshore Fire’s chief on Sept. 1, 2011, and officially retired as of Sept. 15, just days before the Mendocino Complex – the largest wildland fire in California history – was fully contained. He estimated it burned about 90 percent of the fire district.
He’s being succeeded in the chief’s role by Mike Ciancio, who has been the district’s deputy chief for several years.
The district now has 21 firefighters, with four to five active volunteers, Beristianos said.
When he took over as chief, he said his goal was to continue on with what Chief Jim Robbins had started – building a professional fire department. The challenges included establishing policies and training.
“I think we're well on the way. I've very proud of the personnel we have here,” Beristianos said, adding that they do good work and are great on emergency scenes.
Beristianos has also been working on weed abatement as part of his fire protection efforts, noting the fire districts are in the process of working out a joint powers authority with the county to address it. He said the districts have been working on the project for a year, after having started by asking the county to update weed ordinances.
The district sends out 1,000 letters a year asking property owners to cut their weeds, Beristianos said.
He said absentee owners are a big problem, with paper lot owners not responding to the district’s letters or many of them coming back unclaimed. However, the biggest concern is for lots in town where weeds aren’t mowed.
Earlier this year, the county’s fire districts also switched their dispatch service from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Central Dispatch to Cal Fire.
“It has its challenges but we feel like it's working well,” said Beristianos, explaining that it improved incident command on fires.
Earlier this year, the district failed to get a fire tax passed among Northshore voters, which Beristianos said was necessary to keep the district fiscally sound.
“The district is going to have to look seriously at doing it again. Nothing changed,” he said, adding that Upper Lake, Nice and Lucerne haven’t had increases in fire taxes since 1996, and for Clearlake Oaks it’s been since 2004.
Meanwhile, costs to provide services are growing. Beristianos said the district can’t just lay off people, and it has no new volunteers. They also buy used equipment to try to save money.
“Something’s got to give,” he said.
Beristianos’ service as chief intersected with one of the disastrous periods of wildland fires in the county’s history.
Beristianos acknowledged he doesn’t know all of the factors causing the past several years of devastating fires, but he does have some ideas.
“We've always had fires,” he said, adding, that, now, “They're bigger fires.”
Beristianos said he thinks it’s a combination of factors – climate change, the results of drought and, this last year, a double crop of grass.
Lake County and other parts of California now have a year-round fire season. “I think it’s evolved,” said Beristianos, explaining that he can remember that, once November arrived, firefighters could put aside their wildland fire gear until May or June.
As for prevention, Beristianos said, “Prescribed burning is a must.”
He said prescribed burns need to take place to reduce catastrophic fires.
He said Lake County is facing a new normal that includes fires that start and burn with extreme rates of spread in dry fuels and rough topography. “With those conditions, you can’t get enough resources fast enough to control the fire before it gets too big.”
Many small departments – which are the first line of defense – are having a tough time making ends meet and have to call in Cal Fire as backup. Beristianos said the state has to look at supplementing local government by upstaffing.
In the case of the Mendocino Complex, he said there were two major fires – the Ranch and River branches of the complex – going at the same time and getting big fast, incident complexity and a lack of firefighters, as resources needed to be sent to the Carr fire in Redding.
The wheels of the system can’t move fast enough, said Beristianos, and there aren’t enough local, state or federal resources. He said the US Forest Service doesn’t have enough California resources, and Forest Service engines from Upper Lake often are sent out of area to incidents.
“Firefighting, I think, has to be a higher priority at the state level,” said Beristianos, adding that he was not blaming anything on the state. Rather, he said local government fire districts and Cal Fire need to be better funded.
As for what people can do to protect themselves, Beristianos said it goes back to defensible space and “house hardening.”
In the case of defensible space, it means clearing vegetation around homes, and cleaning gutters – an item that gets overlooked but which can be important, as pine needles or leaves that gather there can easily catch fire.
House hardening includes putting in vents that close off heat, using tempered glass, fire-resistant or noncombustible siding, and sprinklers.
Regarding what’s next, Beristianos was planning to take a month and a half off to decompress before starting a new job with an insurance company, which has hired him as a wildfire specialist.
“I’ve got the personality, I can't sit around,” he said.
In the capacity of wildfire specialist, Beristianos will cover an area from Monterey to the Oregon border, doing home inspections and evaluating fire risk in order to reduce premiums. He starts work Oct. 31.
“It's a natural fit,” he said.
He likes to fish, kayak and travel, and he’ll have time for that even with the new job.
Beristianos expects to stay in Lake County in the near future. He and wife, Lori, have two adult daughters and granddaughters, and they’ve thought of moving closer to family.
He said he’s proud of the department, whose members give it all to protect the community.
“It's been a pleasure to serve the community,” Beristianos said.
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