Home East County August: ECCFPD Response Times At 7:05 Minutes

August: ECCFPD Response Times At 7:05 Minutes

by ECT

ECCFPD 93

In the month of August, the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District ran a total of 576 calls with an average response time of 7:05 minutes. In the month of July, the District ran 551 calls with an average of 7:26 minutes.

For the year, the District has ran 6,454 calls for service with a response time of 7:08 minutes. Here is a breakdown of calls for service by station.

  • Station 52 (Balfour, Brentwood): 157 calls in the month of August with a response time of 5:57 minutes.
  • Station 54 (downtown Brentwood): 112 calls in the month of August with a response time of 6:32 minutes
  • Station 59 (Bixler, Discovery Bay): 77 calls in the month of August with a response time of 8:28 minutes.
  • Station 93 (O’Hara, Oakley): 173 calls in the month of August with a response time of 6:38 minutes.
  • Station 94 (A St., Knightsen): 15 calls in the month of August with a response time of 8:17 minutes.
  • Station 95 (Ranch Ln, Bethel Island – Closed): 32 calls in the area with response time of 12:03 minutes
  • Cal-Fire Station 16 (Marsh Creek/Morgan Territory): 6 calls for service in the month of August with a response time of 14:41 minutes.

In the month of August, the District received aid from Contra Costa County 28-times, sending 34 engines. In return, the District sent Contra Costa County aid 18-times while providing 24-engines.

During last nights meeting, Chief Henderson shared that Station 54 was temporary closed 8-times due to staffing and officially closed Sept. 1.

According to Vince Wells, President of the Professional Firefighters of Contra Costa County Local 1230, he shared that as of September 1 there was a policy change regarding the aid agreement. He stated that under the new policy, the District must first utilize its resources first—meaning all stations will be empty on a structure response before CONFIRE sends additional resources.

Wells used the example of a structure fire response (5-engines) in Oakley because due to the location, Discovery Bay (Station 59) would rarely be dispatched because Antioch stations were closer. Under the new policy, Engine 59 will be dispatched along with the other stations with CONFIRE sending just 1-engine. If there is a second alarm – you would then get another five engines from CONFIRE.

“This is something that needs to be addressed,” said Wells. “The equity in auto aid is always 2-to-1 with CONFIRE versus East County and there needs to be some requirement that is equal. One District subsidizing another needs to be looked at.”

Wells also accused the District of not getting the story out to the public that aid from CONFIRE is covering ECCFPD. One example was CONFIRE sending Station 82 (Blue Rock, Antioch) to the Streets of Brentwood for a medical where a woman fell and hurt her head.

“There are plenty of stories, this is already going down on the impacts of shortages,” said Wells. “I do think it’s very important and those in the business let the public know what is happening and because that is not happening. If you want us to write everything down about our operational update, we will be happy to do that, but the information needs to get to the public about what is happening. It’s already been bad, the public deserves to know.”

Gil Guerrero, Vice President of Local 1230,  mentioned the average response time of Station 52 runs a lot of calls right outside of the station to Westmont and Cortona—a 1-minute response. The public should see that they have 1-minute calls that distort the average response times. These will go up now that 54 is closed, but he urged the Board to showcase Station 52 responses on some of its longer calls because the average time is skewed with its responses essentially across the Street.

“This makes the response time so much shorter with so many right outside the door of the station,” said Guerrero.

 

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