Mutual Aid is a critical part of firefighting, and it is when surrounding departments provide additional resources to help out with another department when rescources are low or when there is a large and complex incident.
SRVFPD primarily recieves and provides mutual aid for the surrounding departments, which are primarily CCCFPD from the North and ACFD from the South. CCCFPD primarily provides mutual aid from their Stations 1, 3, and 4, and ACFD provides mutual aid from their Stations 15, 16, and 17. In addition, SRVFPD prmarily provides mutual aid to CCCFPD from Station 32, and mutual aid to ACFD from Station 39.
Cal Fire provides mutual aid to SRVFPD primarily for vegetation and wildfires. Most importantly, Cal Fire provides SRVFPD and all other departments in California with helicopters and tankers when wildland fires occur. From Alma Helitack base near Los Gatos, an S-70i Firehawk is dispatched, Copter 614. From Hollister Air Attack Base, One OV-10 Bronco, Air Attack 460, and Two S-2t Air Tankers, Tankers 79 and 80, are sent.
In the case of a mass casualty incident or a large disaster where the fire department needs more resources, the city/district can declare a state of emergency, and gain other regional mutual aid. If that exceeds the abilities of surrounding districts, they can request help from the state, where the governer can declare a state of emergency, therefore unlocking emergency funding as well as the ability to send state police, transportation, energy management, and can deploy the National Guard. If the disaster exceeds the abilities of the state, then the governer can submit a Emergency Decleration to the president, and if approved, FEMA can send resources such as loans, public assistance, and direct aid to people.
Volunteers play a huge role in assisting with disasters, and aside from reserve firefighters that can be activated, there can be volunteers to assist, and one large resource is CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team, more specifically SRVCERT. This team consists of trained volunteers that can be activated and deployed. Being a member of CERT, I know that if deployed, these trained volunteers can assist with Light Search and Rescue, Basic Firefighting, Utility control, Medical Operations, Triage, and more.