Chief’s Message      

Thank you for your support and for subscribing to the Roseville Fire Department’s quarterly report. The past several months has been extremely busy with a lot of unique calls for service, our brand-new electric fire engine arriving, exceptional training, and a big staffing and grant announcement. Our on-duty firefighters continue to be extremely busy with our call volume demand. Roseville firefighters remain committed to serving our community through our response, training, and community outreach. And will continue to do so.

First things first for this quarterly update, in late September the Roseville Fire Department was notified that we were awarded a $3.9 million staffing grant through the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA); this grant is called a SAFER grant (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response). This grant has been formally accepted by the City of Roseville and will be a huge asset in the hiring of 15 additional firefighters. As has been the case for several years, our department’s call volume continues to tick up at unprecedented levels. Our staffing and response model is falling well behind the demand placed on it. But this grant, once operational, is a monumental game changer for our level of service and daily staffing.  

There is still a lot to do regarding the acceptance of the grant, as well as how and when we operationalize and implement the grant. But it is evident that a significant staffing enhancement is needed in our near future to better aid the department’s ability to respond and support the safety of our community. The grant pays the majority of the costs for 15 new full-time firefighters for three years, allowing the City to have some financial savings for the three years of the grant while also allowing the City to build in some strategic financial planning for when the positions are no longer covered under the grant in 2029 and beyond.