The East Contra Costa Fire Protection District released the following photographs below this morning of the Taylor Road fire that left two homes destroyed and a third one damaged. The photographs show the aftermath of the incident.
According to the report, the cause of the fire is still under investigation with the Contra Costa County Fire Investigations Unit. The incident began at 2:24 am Wednesday morning.
While some may criticize the response tactics, given the PG&E problem and other issues such as location, crews did ultimately make a nice save on the third home.
Responding companies include: Engines 93, 94, 52, 81, 88, 82, 59, Q84, Q85, BS7, WT94, 52, 59, 5100, 5112, B/C8 & 5 with a total of 40 personnel on scene.
I want residents to pay attention to the engines responding as those are all of our stations plus Antioch and Pittsburg on Bethel Island. Had a second fire occurred, responding units may have come from Walnut Creek–but the reality is CONFIRE likely positioned units at Station 93 and moved the Sunshine Station crew up to Brentwood.
I have an email into the Chief about what the coverage was for the District during this incident had a second major incident occurred–this is why East County need a five-station model!
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A couple of questions come to my mind: 1) how long will ConFire continue to strip their service area to respond to incidents in ECCFP. yes, I know all about Mutual Aid but there will come a point that ConFire can’t/won’t send everything. 2) If this fire had happened in a more populated and accessible area, would there already be shouts that something has to be done? Lets face it, while engines started arriving within 15 minutes of the call, it took a quite a while to get all the equipment on site. Think if this fire had happened in downtown Brentwood. There would be screams of outrage. As long as these fires happen in the hind end of the district, people will continue to bury their heads in the sand–it won’t happen in my neighborhood. The only saving grace in this incident was the time. Calls for service decrease during the early morning hours but if this happened 5 or 6 hours later, it would be a different story.
“Think if this fire had happened in downtown Brentwood. There would be screams of outrage. As long as these fires happen in the hind end of the district, people will continue to bury their heads in the sand–it won’t happen in my neighborhood.”
BINGO!!!!!!!!!
So how much did this cost Antioch and Pittsburg residents to put out this fire? Why does no one ever state how much resources cost from CONFIRE when East County has a major incident?
And that is my point. ConFire has there own budget issues. several months ago I brought up the City of Oakley approved more low income housing behind Raley’s. These are 3 or 4 story buildings. ECCFP doesn’t have a ladder truck, they only have the regular “man power” ladders and they will only go the second story. I was told that these buildings aren’t an issue because of the mutual aid agreement with ConFire. I am sorry but to me, it is extremely irresponsible of the city to approve a building that the local, responsible fire dept does not have the necessary equipment to fight a fire on the upper floors. Yes the fire fighters can take in hose and use the buildings fire safety equipment but………… We can’t expect another district to bail our butts out because we are too dumb and too cheap to take responsibility for our own fire district. At some point ConFire is going to have to say enough.
As I commented on a previous post, ECCFPD has an application in to FEMA for a grant to acquire a Quint, similar to those in Pittsburg and Antioch. I agree about the need, and several months ago asked Chief Henderson the same question after a Fire Board meeting. When acquired, the Quint would be cross-staffed with the Engine in the same station.
I was just curious what a Quint costs. DAMN!!!! a 2001 used rig costs $325,000!!! But hey they have a 1978 for only $60,000. With our finances a grant is the only way we are ever going to get one.
A fully-equipped Quint is about $1 million. Latest budget shows Capital Improvement Account and Equipment Replacement Account at around $305,000 each. Tough math.
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