FEMA’s new equipment reimbursement schedule is set to shave tens of thousands of dollars off what local fire departments across California can claim for wildfire deployments, and chiefs say that could make sending engines out of town a luxury they simply cannot afford. Small, volunteer-run districts say the cuts land squarely on the thinnest part of their budgets, the fuel, wear and tear, and post‑incident repairs on heavy rigs after long wildfire assignments. That, they argue, risks shrinking the pool of engines officials rely on when major fires blow up.
Federal rate changes in numbers
The 2025 equipment schedule that FEMA published for disasters declared on or after July 1, 2025, sharply reduces some payments. The hourly reimbursement for a Type 3 off‑road wildland engine drops about 42 percent, from $156.74 to $90.66. The change is part of a broad overhaul that resets payouts for hundreds of items used on wildfire incidents. Those figures appear on FEMA's Schedule of Equipment Rates.
Chiefs say mutual aid could shrink
Small agencies are already running the numbers and do not like what they see. Damon Carrington, chief of the Big Pine Fire Protection District in Inyo County, told reporters that if last year’s nine deployments had been reimbursed under the new schedule, his district would have received about $160,000 less, on a base budget of roughly $330,000, and that his agency may scale back out‑of‑area trips as a result. Menlo Park Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen warned the methodology “doesn’t reimburse actual costs and could discourage chiefs from helping neighbors,” as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
How FEMA figures the rates
Under FEMA’s public assistance rules, equipment rates are intended to cover ownership and operating costs, such as depreciation, maintenance, fuel, tires, and related expenses, while operator labor is billed separately. States may use their own equipment rates up to a regulatory ceiling if they can document their costs. Those policy details are laid out in FEMA’s Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide and are reflected in the national schedule of hourly rates. See FEMA and the FEMA Schedule of Equipment Rates.
State pushes back
California officials say the federal numbers do not match real‑world costs. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services told the Chronicle the new FEMA rates are “out of alignment with actual costs in California” and said the state is working on a California-specific equipment rate structure. The paper also reported that about $75 million moved through state transfers for equipment reimbursement last year. Local elected officials have urged FEMA to revisit the schedule, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
What this could mean on the ground
Replacing and maintaining engines is a big ticket proposition. Initial purchase prices for modern fire apparatus commonly range from the mid-hundreds of thousands of dollars to the millions for specialized trucks, and departments juggle those capital costs against extremely tight operating budgets. Industry reporting notes that a Type 1 engine today can run in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars, and aerial apparatus often reach $800,000 to $1 million or more, which puts long-term maintenance and replacement pressure on local taxpayers and local budgets. See industry analysis at FireRescue1.
What to watch next
State officials and local chiefs are expected to monitor this fire season closely and track how often departments decline far‑flung assignments. Debates are likely to center on whether California should adopt a separate rate schedule of its own or absorb some costs to keep mutual aid intact. For departments already operating on shoestring budgets, the next few months may bring hard choices about sending engines far from home, exactly the kind of outcome the mutual aid system was built to prevent.
