The union that represents Cal Fire firefighters in the Riverside County Unit has filed a workplace-safety complaint with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, alleging that unusual levels of physical fatigue and mental stress have set in because of excessive overtime worked due to inadequate staffing.
Even during normal times, state firefighters are required to work significant amounts of overtime, especially during the height of fire season, when they fill in for coworkers who have been assigned to brush fires out of the area for days or weeks at a time. But during the pandemic, 559 Riverside County Unit firefighters have been in quarantine at some point — some multiple times — said Capt. Peter Boctor, the deputy vice president of the statewide union’s Riverside district, making the situation worse.