Chief Frank Bigelow
Chief Bigelow began his CAL FIRE career in 2004 as a Fire Fighter I at the Ahwahnee station in the Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit (MMU). In 2013, Chief Bigelow promoted to Fire Captain at the Columbia Air Attack Base in the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit (TCU) working as the Air Tanker Base Manager. At the end of the 2013 fire season, he accepted a permanent Fire Captain position in MMU as the Pre-Fire Engineer. In 2020, Frank then promoted to the Deputy Chief of the then-called Wildfire Prevention Engineering Division in the Office of the State Fire Marshal, where he oversaw five statewide programs. In 2021, he accepted a Staff Chief position in the newly created Community Wildfire Preparedness & Mitigation Division, overseeing eight statewide programs. Most recently, Chief Bigelow was the Assistant Deputy Director (ADD) of Community Wildfire Preparedness & Mitigation, the ADD of Fire Engineering & Investigations, and oversaw the division’s support services section.