With East Contra Costa Fire Protection District fire closing stations in early May, the Districts average response time increased to 7:57 minutes where they had 596 calls for service. For the year, the average response time is 7:21 minutes.
According to data provided by the District, here is a look at the percentages of calls by each station
- Brentwood Station 52 – 157 calls first due (26.34% of calls)
- Brentwood Station 54 – 129 calls first due (21.64% of calls)
- Discovery Bay Station 59 – 65 calls first due (10.91% of calls)
- Oakley Station 93 – 174 calls first due (29.19% of calls)
- Knightsen Station 94 – 20 calls first due (3.36% of calls)
- Bethel Island Station 95 (closed) – 31 calls first due (5.20% of calls)
- CALFIRE – 20 calls first due (3.36% of calls)
Note – Knightsen Station closed May 11
Response Times By Station:
- Station 52 (John Muir Parkway, Brentwood) – had 157 calls in the month of May with an average response time of 6.38 minutes.
- Station 54 (downtown Brentwood) – closed Jan 1, 2015, had 129 calls in the area in the month of May with an average response time of 7:57 minutes.
- Station 59 (Bixler Road, Discovery Bay) – had 65 calls in the month of May with an average response time of 7:03 minutes.
- Station 93 (O’Hara Ave, Oakley) had 174 calls for the month of May with an average response time of 7:03 minutes.
- Station 94 (Knightsen) – had 20 calls in the area which closed May 11 with an average response time of 10:56 minutes.
- Station 95 (Bethel Island, closed July 2012) had 31 calls in the area in the month of May with an average response time of 15:03 minutes.
- CAL Fire/Marsh Creek Station 16 – had 20 calls in the month of May with an average response time of 9:50 minutes.
According to the ECCFPD, in the month of May, the District received auto aid from Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (CONFIRE) a total of 37 times with them sending a total of 42 engines. The District sent aid to CONFIRE just 13 times providing them 17 engines.
Note – on May 27, a residential structure fire on Bethel Island had a response of just 4-engines going to attack a fire versus 5-engines because no other auto aid was available. Luckily, no aid was required as the incident was minor and handled by the first arriving engine.
6 comments
Is anyone else confused why Knightsen had its station open over Brentwood? I see Knightsen had just 20 calls but the Brentwood downtown area had 129? Wouldn’t you want to place engines where the calls are at like every other agency does?
Now I am thinking keeping discovery bay open was a mistake with their lack of volume.
Closing the station in Discovery Bay would destroy the community in that location. This was discussed at the last board meeting when the desition was made. They also said multiple times you can not have coverage for all the cities involved with three fire stations.
Actually, its about covering the entire district, not just where the majority of calls might occur. Think of it this way, you could have an area that has a 1,000 routine calls (service calls and low priority calls) and another area which is subject to fewer, but more serious calls. That is only one of many considerations. Response times and fire potential, medical potential, fiscal impact and environmental considerations are also key considerations. The area of Discovery Bay easily merits a fire station over having 2 in Brentwood. Don’t forget Discovery Bay pays more for fire service per household than Brentwood does.
Ours is a fire “district” not a city fire department. The department has an obligation to cover the entire district, not just the densely populated areas.
Knightsen was kept open to mitigate the response times to outer reaches like Bethel Island. Plus provide better coverage for 2nd due overall.
It’s a fire district, not the Brentwood Fire Department. Your deployment suggestion is to protect the cities and maintain their lower response times there at all cost. While effectively giving the middle finger to anyone not in the cities. Response times climbing to 10, 12 and 15 minutes, best case, would become the norm for all outside Brentwood and Oakley. That is pretty much the case in Bethel Island now and has been for awhile.
You want more people experiencing the extremes or do you want the spread the risk? That’s the bottom line.
The simple fact is you can’t cover this District with 3 engines. There are multiple times in any given day when all resources are either in use or pushed to incidents at the extreme reaches of the District, leaving the entire rest of the area uncovered. You can only dodge bullets for so long before you take one. The public, for the most part, has gone back to sleep after the election result.
It’s only a matter of time now before a multi-incident situation comes up and no resources are available. You’ll see a house on fire or a major accident occur and there will not be an available unit within 20 minutes response time. Because those resources will have to be sent by mutual aid from far outside the District. A statistical reality that is going to horrify people when it happens.
It’s unfortunate. But it is the new reality.
Closing 59?, Why don’t people think and look a little harder into the situation. Lets take the fatal accident on Byron Hwy the other day. If 59 were closed then it would have taken the next engine at least 15-20 minutes longer to get there. There were people trapped that needed extrication. How long do you want to sit upside down in a car, injured and waiting. These accidents are not uncommon in that area. They are usually terrible accidents with major injuries. It isn’t just about volume, Its also about acuity in medical emergencies and values of structures, Discovery bay is high in both of these categories. I don’t live there but I would never want a community that large and that isolated to be without a fire station. It just wouldn’t make sense. Now, if Brentwood took the 2 million/year that they are putting into police dispatch and put that into the fire district in a property tax exchange, then they could reopen the other Brentwood station. Alas, Brentwood is obviously such a high crime area that they need their own dispatch center.
All, Great points David! Thank goodness the fire board “gets it” and so does the Fire Chief. Brentwood and Oakley and the County all need to redirect their priorities before the real wake up call comes. Buy a Clue touched on that. It’s not IF a disaster will hit east county but is WHEN, and the clock is already ticking.
It’s unfortunate that a few people from Brentwood are giving the town a very selfish reputation.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea.
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