At 6:58 pm Thursday evening, just 30 minutes after a two-story home was destroyed 3 miles away, fire crews rushed to the Pittsburg School Facilities Building on Loveridge Road. The good news, the sprinkler system appeared to have controlled the blaze before it really could get going.
With the fire being across the street from Station 85, one would have thought it was a perfect scenario; unfortunately, Station 85 crews were at another fire 3-miles away which displaced a family after their home was destroyed on Enterprise Circle.
Quint 83 from Sommersville was first on scene at the warehouse stated Battalion Chief Alan Hartford.
“Our resources are stretched extremely thin. Two years ago we had 30 companies out of 28 stations with 95 personnel on each and every day at the minimum. We currently staff 26 companies out of 26 stations with 83 personnel. The County Administrator is looking to cut two more companies, one in July and another in January, to bring out total down to 24 companies out of 24 stations with 77 personnel on duty. Quite a decrease,” stated Hartford.
Hartford reiterated that so far, station closures have not effected Contra Costa County Fire Protection District in East County, but the next round of cuts appear to be East County—Station 87 in Pittsburg is on the chopping block which has been at all the fires the past two days.
While the fire is still being investigated, it appears it may have started from the exterior of the building according to Battalion Chief Alan Hartford.
“The sprinklers did their job,” said Hartford. “I am not sure how many heads popped but the statistics over the years state that when a fire causes a sprinkler to activate, a large number of times the fire is held in check prior to the arrival of the fire crews. In addition, in over 90% of the time, only one sprinkler is needed to do so.”
He added that fire sprinkles are a wonderful tool which is why so many communities are beginning to require them in all new residential construction.
The fire was a full alarm response with 2 trucks, 3 engines, 2 battalion chiefs and a safety officer. Crews were on scene for just under 2-hours.
4 comments
Awesome shots! Glad to see someone is paying attention that a fire station across the street did not respond first because they were on another fire call. Good info in this article. Yes sprinklers are a good tool, but in residential homes they do cause a ton of water damage which is hit or miss with insurance companies.
Lots of fires between Pittsburg and Antioch the last few days. Appears fire season has started. The Board of Supervisors are crazy if they close station 87 as this will give East County very thin coverage. Great job to the firefighters and to Burk for the photos.
We are currently at 24 companies with 72 firefighters on duty not 26. With 2 more station closures we’ll be down to 22 companies with 66 firefighters.
And one less Fire Chief in a few months.
It’s really not that complicated. http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=48-tcRiBNj4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D48-tcRiBNj4
Not good for Central or East County.
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