1ST DISTRICT REPORT | DARRELL ROBERS
Rancho Santa Fe Loses Two Brothers in Two Months
Fire Captain Chris Mertz
As a small 51-member department serving a well-established community in north San Diego County, Rancho Santa Fe’s firefighters didn’t have much experience with line of duty deaths.
Last November, their bubble burst. Two months later, it burst again.
First was the stunning death of Fire Captain Dale Mosby. A 31 year veteran whose colleagues looked to him as a mentor, lost a long struggle with job-related post-traumatic stress, taking his own life on November 16, 2020.
“Dale was a full-energy kind of guy and he took great pride in his role as a mentor,” said Nick Brandow, president of Rancho Santa Fe Firefighters Local 4349. “He had openly struggled with PTSD, but seemed to have come through and was in a great place. It caught us off guard.”
Brandow said that Mosby’s past struggles with PTSD had spurred him to champion peer support and behavioral health training within the department. Indeed, Those same peer support resources Mosby established helped the members of Local 4349 cope with his death. “He put in place the things we used after he passed,” said Brandow.
The COVID-19 pandemic hampered the ability of firefighters and families to give Mosby the traditional firefighter honors they would have liked. A private family ceremony was followed by a drive-by procession, allowing uniformed personnel to pay their respects while respecting the county’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Fire Captain Dale Mosby
Two months later, COVID-19 hit Rancho Santa Fe firefighters even harder when it claimed the life of another one of their own — Fire Captain Chris Mertz. A 30-year veteran Rancho Santa Fe who’d also worked as a federal hotshot firefighter, Mertz was an original USAR Task Force 8 member who deployed to Ground Zero in 2001 and Katrina in 2005. His son Garrett is a firefighter with CAL FIRE San Diego, and the two had recently had the opportunity to work together on an incident.
“Chris had done it all,” said Brandow. “Whether it was a strike team or whatever needed to be done, he was there and doing it with a smile.”
As with Mosby, COVID-19 posed a challenge for providing an appropriate memorial service. A private ceremony was followed by a vehicle procession through the town of Rancho Santa Fe. As they always do, firefighters from throughout the region, state rallied in support of the small, shellshocked department and its members. Agencies from throughout the region came in immediately to cover Rancho Santa Fe’s stations, both in the immediate aftermath of the deaths and for the scaled-down memorials.
“From the time the incident started, everyone was there,” said Brandow. “Whether it was covering our stations or helping with peer support, every local agency in the area, and all of our local unions stepped up so that we could grieve our loss and celebrate our fallen brothers. The fire service is a family, and our fire family came through.”
Even with the support, the sudden loss of two members will be a hole that won’t be filled soon or easily. “We will never forget these men,” said Brandow. “To my brothers and sisters, I’d say look out for each other, and don’t be afraid to speak up.”
San Bernardino Co. Chief Drops
Plan to Put Ex-Cons on Fire Lines
Recent attempts to elevate and fast-track former inmate hand crew members into the professional fire service gave the San Bernardino County fire chief an idea: How about we try something along those lines here?
San Bernardino County firefighters — and those around the state — were having none of it.
Acting on his own initiative, the county’s fire chief conceived a plan to work with the county’s probation department to target the “best of the criminals” for so-called “endeavor crews.” The crews were officially designated as being involved with brush clearance, but were also targeted as secondary support on fire incidents.
“Essentially, they were being used as a convict crew,” said Jim Grigoli, president of San Bernardino County Firefighters Local 935. “But the problem is they were showing them off as firefighters, in front of rigs. It was a political stunt to gain credibility.”
Grigoli and the local pushed back hard internally, but despite gathering opposition, the chief pushed on. So San Bernardino County Firefighters called in some air support.
CPF President Brian Rice authorized a targeted mailer with a message from a united firefighter front discouraging the unilateral program. Grigoli worked with supportive county supervisors to pressure the fire chief to call off the program. The case was enhanced when the “endeavor crews” fell victim to attrition.
“They didn’t show up for work and we had one that died from unknown causes,” said Grigoli. “They started with 25 and got down to just five.”
In the end, the proposed six-month trial program was dead after three months. In its place, the county is working to build a work-crew program targeting veterans re-entering the work force that could eventually help transition them into them getting Firefighter 1 status. “I could not be more supportive of that,” said Grigoli.