The challenge in the community of Groveland is similar to that found in all small and emerging California communities: providing an adequate level of fire services. This community has not been immune from the “perfect storm” of consequences of over ten years of the State’s taking of local revenues, just as federal and state safety regulations increased the individual time commitment and employer cost burdens on volunteer fire departments. These pressures on volunteer fire departments, when combined with an increasingly two-income-based commuter society, have all but dried up the pool of available volunteer firefighters. Moreover, the demographics of the Groveland community, with its second homeowners and retirees, make the pool of potential volunteers smaller still. Fire department mutual aid is not the answer either, as Groveland’s geographic isolation makes fast response mutual aid to Groveland all but impossible.