Bodega Bay’s financially struggling firefighting agency could have a new name, more firefighters and more paramedics under a plan that would expand the growing Sonoma County Fire District next year — but only if the Board of Supervisors ponies up as much as $2.5 million a year to make it happen.
The 66-year-old coast agency and the 100-year-old Russian River Fire Protection District both want to join Sonoma County Fire, the latest in a series of moves meant to consolidate and modernize the county’s far-flung and somewhat antiquated fire services network.
Sonoma County Fire Chief Mark Heine called the changes important for firefighting but difficult for the agencies making them.
“It’s a very emotional thing for a board, disbanding a fire agency and combining it with another one,” said Heine.