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), where he spent five seasons. In 2009, he promoted to a Fire Apparatus Engineer at the Coarsegold Station, also in MMU. In 2013, Chief Bigelow promoted to Limited Term 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 2017, he promoted to Battalion Chief as the Southern Region Pre-Fire Coordinator. 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.

Chief Bigelow was integral in the development of the Online Burn Permit process. In 2018, Chief Bigelow was a part of a small group who implemented the CALFIRS system. He also co-developed an application for field data collection on fuels reduction projects used by the Fuels Crews. 

Chief Bigelow represents the department in various capacities. He is a Board of Directors member for the California Fire Safe Council and is a member of the newly created CAL POLY Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Institute Steering Committee. Additionally, he chairs the CalMAPPER Steering Committee, serves on various Wildfire & Forest Resilience Taskforce working groups, and is part of the eGIS Committee, as well as many others. Chief Bigelow is also a State Fire Marshal instructor, and a California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI) instructor. His knowledge of GIS and Environmental Science Research Institute (ESRI) products will be of great benefit in this new role.