Canyon Lake Fire Service: New Protocol Begins Jan. 1

CANYON LAKE, CA — Riverside County supervisors Tuesday approved a contract with the city of Canyon Lake for the county to continue handling public safety dispatch services after the municipality converts to a stand-alone fire department at the end of the year.

In a 5-0 vote without comment, the Board of Supervisors authorized Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department to manage 911 calls for the independent Canyon Lake Fire Department between Jan. 1, 2022 and June 30, 2024, at a cost of $273,808.

According to the terms, the call volume is expected to be around 800 per year.

"This new dispatch and communication agreement will be the first time the city of Canyon Lake has contracted with the fire department for only dispatch services," according to documents posted to the board's agenda.

The county fire department's current contract to provide emergency services in the gated municipality of roughly 11,000 residents will end on Dec. 31.

One firehouse is staffed 24/7.

Canyon Lake is the only city in Riverside County to cancel fire services over the last decade. It shuttered its firehouse on July 1, 2015, after the city and county became embroiled in legal wrangling over nearly $2 million in unpaid fire services bills, which Canyon Lake representatives at the time blamed on increased firefighter staffing that the city did not want and could not afford.

Officials said budgetary reserves were depleted paying for county public safety services. The result was a breach of contract lawsuit in which the county alleged that, beginning in the last half of the 2013-14 fiscal year, Canyon Lake stopped making payments under the fire protection contract that went into effect on July 1, 2011.

The suit was resolved in the fall of 2015, when Canyon Lake agreed to reimburse the county $1.7 million. However, the Canyon Lake City Council kept the local fire station closed while examining the prospects of establishing a city-run fire department.

Between July 2015 and May 2017, the city paid for fire protection on an as-needed basis, with fire trucks from Lake Elsinore and Menifee responding to 911 calls in Canyon Lake. Response times ran as long as 15 minutes, and the city, through the offices of Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, eventually reached a compromise agreement with the county to reopen the on-site fire station in June 2017.

Initially, the city only paid for a two-person crew on one fire engine, which is below county-mandated minimum staffing. Three-person staffing was restored under a 2018 contract.