photo credit: Marc Albert/KRCB
Utility crews get to work clearing up storm damage in Santa Rosa in this 2022 file photo.

One thing to emerge from repeated local catastrophes was a determination at many levels to fight back against fire, and to redouble efforts to contain the next blaze before lives are under threat.

One such example is at Santa Rosa Junior College where programs are training locals to reduce or eliminate threats both to neighborhoods and utility lines---marketable skills in today's job market. It's funded in part by a legal settlement with utility Pacific Gas & Electric Company over ignition of 2017's Tubbs and Nuns fire.

Santa Rosa Junior College's Dean of Academic Affairs, Benjamin Goldstein said, among the curriculum for the Utility Line Clearance Arborist Training is....

"Safety of course, but also tree climbing, brush and limb removal, arboriculture, tree identification, and that program graduated 21 students, that was one of the most diverse classes that any community college has run, statewide, of this specific program." Goldstein said.

While initial funding has been spent, money from another legal settlement, from another wildfire, the Kincaid, also blamed on PG&E, will keep the training program going, Goldstein said.

A separate, but related program---paid internships teaching principles of wildland firefighting, fire resistant landscapes, and techniques for controlled burns has moved out of SRJC facilities and are now run by nonprofit agencies, Fire Forward, North Bay Jobs with Justice, Conservation Corps North Bay, Sonoma Ecology Center, and Circuit Rider.

However, the college's relationship with the internships isn't completely severed.

"We continue to offer credit to any SRJC students that are doing paid, or unpaid internships in this field of wildfire resilience with these organizations or any organization," Goldstein said.

When he made a pitch for funding to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors in 2021, Goldstein told the county's elected leaders the program filled a local need, and a provided a real career path.

"The local workforce shortage is very real and very acute. Just last month there was an article in the PD [Santa Rosa Press Democrat] that referenced some fire fuel mitigation work in Sonoma Valley, and they brought a crew down from Mendocino County at the tune of $5,000 a day, so we really need to get going on this," Goldstein urged the board.

The demand still exists. A quick search on the job finding website Glassdoor listed 658 openings for utility linemen across the nation on Friday. PG&E is currently recruiting for 27 such positions, ten of which are in the North or East Bay.

Instruction of the next cohort is set for July and August.

"Open enrollment for the 2024 utility line clearance arborist turning program beginning in probably February," Goldstein said.

The program is competitive. Goldstein said that of the more than 100 who applied last year, just two dozen were accepted.