Another busy year for the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority ended with a busy night as crews responded to both a significant car crash and a reported structure fire at nearly the same time on New Year’s Eve.
UVFA Battalion Chief Eric Singleton said that at around 10:40 p.m. on Dec. 31, crews were dispatched to the 300 block of East Gobbi Street for a report of a vehicle crashing into a building and causing “significant damage.”
When crews arrived, Singleton said the “vehicle was fully inside the structure” after reportedly traveling over the curb, a planter, and a three-foot-tall metal fence before entering the building near the intersection of East Gobbi Street and Waugh Lane. Before crashing into the building, the vehicle had reportedly been heading northbound on Waugh Lane.
UVFA crews found a passenger already out of the vehicle, but the driver was still inside. After the driver was “quickly extricated,” Singleton said he was transported to Adventist Health Ukiah Valley.
When asked if the driver was suspected to be under the influence or had been arrested, Singleton said he could not speak to that, explaining that the Ukiah Police Department was still investigating the crash when UFVA crews had to respond to another call. UPD staff reached Thursday could not provide details regarding a possible arrest.
“We had just got the person out of the vehicle when we got a call for a possible residential structure fire on Kenwood Drive,” Singleton said, reporting that when crews arrived at the home, all of the occupants were found safely outside.
He said the fire was located in an electrical outlet that had a space heater plugged into it, and that while crews did “open up the wall a bit” to make sure the fire had not spread, the residents did not need to be displaced from their home.
“So it was not a great New Year’s Eve for them, but not as terrible as it could have been,” he said, noting that an efficient inspection of the home was possible in large part due to the fact that Matt Keiser, the city of Ukiah’s Building Official, is also a volunteer with the UVFA.
When asked about the 2025 fire season overall, Singleton said that it was definitely “comparatively mild” throughout the state of California in terms of wildland fires, but that he had been part of a Strike Team that responded to a large fire in San Luis Obispo County in the summer of 2025.
Locally, Singleton said the UVFA was still “extremely busy” in 2025, responding to 7,661 calls for service, a number that he said was continuing the trend of a year-to-year increase of 200 to 300 calls. He did add, however, that many of those calls were IFTs, or inter-facility transfers, which the UVFA has recently dedicated ambulances to in order to make sure that enough ambulances are available to responded to 911 calls.
“We also responded to 162 fires in 2025,” said Singleton, explaining that on the first day of 2026, the UVFA was also ready and able to respond to storm-related calls, having received funding from the state Office of Emergency Services to pre-position engines throughout Mendocino County, including on the coast, which he described as likely getting the brunt of the latest winter storm.
He noted that the funding was enough to provide crews at the ready 24/7 for the next three days, and “we will be responding to any large downed trees and road blockages,” and keeping watch on the local rivers for chances of flooding.
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