Matt Ryan named new chief for Napa County Fire, Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit

Matt Ryan has been selected as the next Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit chief, a promotion that also makes him leader of the Napa County Fire Department.

Cal Fire, which operates the Napa County agency, announced Ryan’s appointment Monday.

In addition to his duties in Napa and as Cal Fire’s unit chief for the North Bay, overseeing a six-county region, Ryan also will lead the South Lake County Fire Protection District.

“I grew up here, have been serving our communities for the past 24 years and have seen the many partnerships evolve as we all come together to work toward keeping our communities safe,” Ryan said in a Cal Fire news release.

The new appointment comes after Ryan’s predecessor, Mike Marcucci, retired from Cal Fire last month to become a Marin County Fire division chief and the director of the Marin Emergency Command Center.

Ryan, who was raised in Sonoma Valley and graduated from Sonoma High School in 2000, has an associate of science degree from Butte College. He has served in Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit since joining the state agency as a firefighter in 2001.

He has worked at several stations, including Gordon Valley and Spanish Flat near Lake Berryessa, both in Napa County.

Starting in 2007 as a fire apparatus engineer, Ryan worked four years at the station in Yountville. From 2011 to 2019, he worked as fire captain, working out of Cal Fire stations in Petaluma, Leesville — near Williams — and Clearlake Oaks.

From 2019 to 2022, he was a battalion chief for the training bureau, with oversight of all Cal Fire training and EMS operations for the region and the Napa County Fire Department.

Most recently, he served as Cal Fire’s deputy chief of state operations in the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, overseeing operations, the emergency command center in St. Helena, and the aviation and camp programs, according to Cal Fire.

Since the 1930s, Napa County has contracted with Cal Fire to run its fire department, with 20 stations that use both career and volunteer firefighters.

The Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit is responsible for protecting 2.3 million acres in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Colusa, Solano and Yolo counties.