The Imperial Beach Fire Department is grappling with a 25% vacancy rate and an escalating workload that has pushed its firefighters to work stretches of up to a week and a half with minimal time off.
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The update came during the June 17 council meeting during a report required under Assembly Bill 2561, a state law that mandates annual reports to governing boards on employee vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts.
Of the department’s 12 budgeted positions, three are currently unfilled — one fire captain, one fire engineer and one firefighter. The vacancy rate surpasses the 20% threshold that triggers formal notification under AB 2561.
Jason Bell, an Imperial Beach fire captain and representative of Imperial Beach Firefighters IAFF Local 4692, told the council that call volume has increased nearly 50% over the past decade, rising from approximately 1,700 to 1,800 calls per year to around 3,000 to 3,100 annually, while budgeted staffing has remained flat. The department, he said, is the busiest single-station, single-apparatus agency in the county when mutual aid is included.
“Our normal schedule is 48 hours on, 96 hours off,” Bell said. “The current schedule, we’re anywhere between two days and a week and a half with a day or so off and then back at it.”
He also noted that 15 firefighters have departed for other agencies over the past decade — a number exceeding the department’s current full budgeted complement.
Compensation was cited as a central driver of attrition. Bell said that a top-step paramedic working for one of San Diego County’s two main ambulance companies earns comparable pay to a top-step firefighter paramedic at Imperial Beach, without the added responsibilities of fire suppression.
Fire Chief John French attributed part of the recruitment difficulty to the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted fire academies and paramedic programs and reduced the pool of candidates holding both credentials.
“Before COVID, when we went out for an application, we would find qualified paramedics that had fire academies,” French said. “Since that time, we do not have that.”
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The department has responded by sending new hires through fire academies at city expense, exploring a mutual staffing agreement with the city of Chula Vista, and enrolling in the Fire Candidate Testing Center. The city reported that salary increases of up to 24% were extended to IBFA members between 2023 and 2025, with a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment set to take effect July 1.
Another factor French noted as a significant recruitment challenge is the ongoing Tijuana River sewage and pollution crisis, where millions of gallons of raw sewage and industrial waste flow across the border from Mexico into the U.S. every day causing the surrounding South Bay communities to experience health impacts from polluted air and water.
During public comment, resident Carl Bradley raised concern over a reported brownout that would have required the San Diego Fire Department to cover Imperial Beach.
“This is simply unacceptable,” Bradley said, calling on the city to maintain an active eligibility list for critical positions.
Resident Lisa Thomas urged the city to conduct exit interviews on every departing employee and have city management review the findings, saying “we cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.”
Council members expressed support for the department while acknowledging the city’s limited revenue base. Mayor Pro Tem Jack Fisher said that while management and firefighters may view the situation differently, both sides share a fundamental concern over the vacancies and the stakes involved.
“Public safety is our number one priority,” Fisher said. “I hope that sides can get together because what makes our fire station the best is the people within it, without a shadow of doubt.”
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