California Task Force 3 (CA-TF3)
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The Menlo Park Fire Protection District is proudly the Sponsoring Agency for one (1) of the twenty-eight (28) Teams. Menlo Park's team is California Task Force 3 (CA-TF3). CA-TF3 is a local team that responds regionally, statewide and nationally as part of the National Response System. CA-TF3 operates under guidelines established with a Cooperative Agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). CA-TF3 has a long history in the Fire District and has had the support of the State and Federal government for decades.
In 1981, the Fire District was invited to participate in a large-scale county disaster drill. The Fire District accepted the invitation and reconstituted disaster manuals that were last updated in 1951. These manuals were utilized during World War II by the Fire District for the Federal Office of Civil Defense (OCD) processes. This drill led to the creation of the District’s Disaster Operations Division (DOD), established that same year. The same manuals and class curriculums that were utilized to prepare for the anticipated bombing within the Fire District were revamped for anticipated disasters.
On September 19, 1985, an earthquake hit Mexico City measuring 8.1 with aftershocks measuring as high as 7.5. The city was devastated with over 5,000 killed, 14,000 injured and more than 2 million temporarily rendered homeless. Many members from our region later found their way to CA-TF3 as a result of the response to Mexico City. This event fueled the need for the Fire District’s DOD. With the momentum from the Mexico City Earthquake, the State began the organizing what would later become Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) teams as state resources. Our members quickly became part of these discussions and the class curriculums previously utilized by OCD were slightly modified and adopted by the State as Rescue Systems 1 and Rescue Systems 2 class curriculums.
In 1989, there were two major disasters in the Nation, the Loma Prieta Earthquake in California and Hurricane Hugo that made landfall in South Carolina. These two disasters were a call to action for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create several working groups with members from all over the United States. Fire District members were appointed to these committees and helped to develop what is now known as the National Response System. On May 16, 1991, the framework was completed, and the National Response System was created. Following its inception, fire agencies were encouraged to apply to become part of the system.
The Fire District applied to be part of the National Response System and was formally accepted on October 12, 1993, with a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) after the City of San Francisco dropped out of the process. This original agreement was a tri-party agreement between the Federal Government, State Government and Fire District. The agreement allowed for ‘limited funding’ from the Federal Government and no funding from the State.
Since the original MOA, the funding for CA-TF3 has changed many times. In the last four years the Federal Government has provided the Fire District between $1.32M to $1.43M each year with Cooperative Agreement Funds for the readiness of CA-TF3. For more than a decade the State of California has been assisting the Fire District’s Task Force by providing $100k every four years to offset the costs of a Mobilization Exercise (MobEx) for CA-TF3. This year the State is increasing these funds to $519k and is allowing excess funds to be utilized for general training requirements.
Subject Matter Experts are still participating in the framework of the system by participating in Advisory Organization Groups that help continued growth and development of the US&R program and Incident Support Teams that provide command and control during national disasters.
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