By Jessica A. York
The Vallejo Times Herald
VALLEJO, Calif. — When asked directly by city leaders if Vallejo would remain safe after a fourth fire engine company is closed Monday morning, Interim Fire Chief Doug Robertson replied simply.
“No. (But) we’re going to try to make it as safe as we can,” Robertson told the council Tuesday night.
Robertson pointed to the reduction of firefighter daily staffing from 18 to 15, saying fires will become bigger and city paramedics will typically take longer to arrive to emergency calls.
Vallejo City Councilman Michael Wilson later commented that he didn’t “recall hearing that in the budget.” Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes said discussion of the severe impacts of a fire station closure should have come back when new employee contracts were proposed.
“We’re at a serious point here,” Gomes said. “We thought bankruptcy was the bottom, and it’s obviously not.”
The council discussion followed a city fire department explanation of why stations in North Vallejo and Glen Cove would close, joining Mare Island’s station. The city’s downtown fire station is also set to lose its fire engine, but gain a non-water-carrying ladder truck available for medical calls. Firefighters based their decision on factors like population density, response times and number of annual calls for service.
Vallejo will be relying heavily on neighboring fire districts for backup, and focus first on halting a fire’s spread from building to building — a defensive move, before offensively seeking to extinguish the fires, Robertson said.
Some of the closures allow for the reopening of two stations closed in 2008.
Assistant Fire Chief Greg Falkenthal detailed some of the department’s thinking in its planned station closures.
“From an operational standpoint, we threw things back and forth in a hundred different directions,” Falkenthal said. “But there’s no way to reduce your engine coverage from eight engine companies to four companies and not have places that are going to be lacking in coverage or going to have their times extended. And Hiddenbrooke is going to be one of them, there’s no question about that.”
Fire officials also noted that Mare Island, whose station was closed last July, is also a problem area for fire coverage.
“We don’t get a lot of calls at Mare Island, but when we do, it’s the real deal,” Robertson said. “A fire at Mare Island? Catastrophic.”
Copyright 2010 The Times-Herald