January 1, 2026 

Brothers and Sisters, 

2025 has been a long and arduous year, marked by many significant accomplishments by our members and significant losses. As we move into 2026, I want to ensure we take time to remember the sacrifices made by our members and their families. This year, we lost a close friend and brother, Kevin Skinner. As we enter the new year, I ask that you keep his family in your thoughts and prayers. 

2026 is shaping up to be a remarkable year for our membership and will usher in tremendous change within our agency. The most significant change will be the selection of the first internal Fire Chief in more than fifteen years at OCFA. The current executive management team has been working collaboratively with Local 3631 to improve OCFA for our members and for the communities we serve. 

Much like 2024, 2025 had many strides toward strengthening our membership and ensuring our members earn a livable wage in the communities we protect. We converted our remaining three-person engines to 4-0 staffing, expanded to two fully staffed 24-hour helicopters, created a lead crew chief position in Air Operations, renegotiated our Health Plan Agreement to further reduce monthly healthcare costs by more than 15%. We also secured free PPO dental coverage for our members and their families, transitioned from body scans to MRI-based scanning, paid our UAL down to over 99% funded, advanced a Captain’s process, significantly reduced forced overtime, added E12 to reduce call volume in the Saddleback Valley, and assisted OCFA in creating a program to return injured employees to work more quickly. These are just some of the high-level achievements made possible through the hard work and dedication of our union Executive Board. 

As in previous years, we traveled to Colorado Springs and Sacramento to honor the memories of our fallen brothers. These efforts would not be possible without the tireless work of retired Fire Captain Hiddo Horlings. With his support, we have established an advisory board for our nonprofit, the Fallen Firefighter Relief Fund. That board is led by Steven Kuhl, who has volunteered to shadow Hiddo over the next few years and ultimately assume responsibility for these important programs. For the first time, the FFRF has partnered with several outstanding businesses in our district to generate additional revenue, including Madson Sunglasses, OC Soccer Club, Rom Brewery, Leo’s Screen Printing, Chase Promotional, and many more in the works. The goal of the FFRF is to be a one-stop shop for our members in their most critical time of need.  

As we begin 2026, we face multiple major issues that will require the continued support of our membership. These include selecting the next Fire Chief, transitioning management of our HRA to Local 3631, and most importantly beginning negotiations. 

As always, stay safe and take care of each other. 

Chris Hamm, President 
Orange County Firefighters 
IAFF Local 3631