Historic Drought turns California into a Tinderbox

California’s is facing an unprecedented threat of wildland fires this year as a result of the historic drought. According to California Office of Emergency Services…”the tally of fires so far this year is 967—that’s 38 percent higher than the average for this date since 2005. The number of acres burned is up to 4,083, nearly double the count at this time last year and 81 percent above the average since 2005”.

Under the guise of discussing the City’s budget, the City Council of Lake Elsinore terminated the CalFire contract for Downtown Fire Station-10. This marks the end of 60 Years of Fire Station-10 service to the Downtown funded by the City. The City’s contract termination will result in the loss of eight fire-fighting personnel, including 1-Captain, 2-Engineers, 2-paramedics and 3-firefighters. The City owned Fire Engine no. 10 will also be idled (what a waste of a $250,000 fire engine). The City only has 4 Fire Stations; therefore cutting 1 is a 25% reduction. The CalFire contract will terminate June 30th, just in time for the Fourth of July fireworks. Could there be a worse possible time for the City of Lake Elsinore to cut Fire Protection Services?

The City’s description of Fire Station-10 on its website states:

“Located downtown near the “old town district”, Station 10 is the oldest of the four fire stations in Lake Elsinore. Built in the 1950’s, Station 10 is a CALFIRE fire station; One of nine in Riverside County. CALFIRE and Lake Elsinore jointly operate three fire engines and a squad from this facility through their cooperative-integrated system.
Equipment located at Station 10 include paramedic Engine 10, Engine 3173 and Engine 3175 (the CALFIRE wildland engines), and Squad 10 (mostly operated by the Volunteer Firefighters”).

The City is partially pinning their hopes on CalFire’s wildland engines to fight fires in the City. However, CalFire personnel and equipment are likely to be deployed outside the City for long periods of time during significant wildland fires. Besides, CalFire engines don’t have paramedics, just EMTs.

Fire Station-10 was the center hub in a wheel of the planned placement of Fire Stations throughout the City (see map of Fire St. 10, 85, 94 & 97 above). According to the City’s General Plan the response (travel) time for the arrival of a fire engine to any location in the City should be seven (7) minutes, with the goal to reduce the response time to five (5) minutes. Without Fire Station-10, the response time to the Downtown will be 9-10 minutes. The General Plan also states that paramedics are required at each station.

City’s General Plan:

“Although the fire stations are operated by RCFD, CDF staffs firefighters and stores firefighting equipment at stations throughout the City, particularly during peak fire season. Both agencies respond to all types of emergencies, depending on the need and equipment available. Emergencies range from wildland fires, residential/commercial structure fires, automobile accidents, medical aid of all types, search and rescue missions, hazardous material spills, floods, earthquakes, and more. Standard response times are established by RCFD guidelines. One goal in the guidelines calls for the response time to any location within the City to be seven (7) minutes, with the intent to reduce that time to five (5) minutes”.

“Since October 2003, fire paramedics are required at each station. These specially trained firefighters are equipped to respond to medical emergencies and ride on all calls. Their arrival on the scene can ensure the timely start of emergency medical treatment until an ambulance arrives for patient transport. Each fire engine carries nearly $35,000 worth of state-of-the-art emergency medic equipment”.

According to the Riverside County Fire Department’s “Principles that Guide Fire Station Location Methodology Guiding” principles for locating fire stations are found in the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook, Volume II, 20th edition, and include:

“Consideration of NFPA Standard 1710 as a guideline, which calls for an engine company within 4 minutes, zero seconds of travel time to fire incidents and EMS calls, and a full first-alarm group within 8 minutes, zero seconds—all for a minimum of 90% of annual incidents.”

Again, without Fire Station-10 the response time to the Downtown will be 9-10 minutes. The statistics show that Fire Station-10 is vital for providing paramedic services to the downtown in a timely manner. According to the Monthly Incident Report for incidents in the City during the month of May 2015, Fire Station-10 responded to 82 medical calls, whereas the City’s newest Station-97 responded to only 32 medical calls within the City limits.

Below is an excerpt from last year’s Friday Flyer (April 2014), which interviewed Fire Captain Roberts (Station-94 in Canyon Hills) primarily talking about the closing Canyon Lake’s Fire Station-60 and the importance of backup from Fire Station-10.

“Engine 94 was able to handle two of the four calls but required the assistances of Engine 60 and Engine 10 to pick up the other two calls, two of which were critical calls that required the Cal Fire firefighter/paramedic to assist the AMR paramedic and ride into the hospital in the back of the ambulance. This type of scenario happens frequently,” Jeff says. Read the whole article at the weblink below.

http://fridayflyer.com/2014/04/11/fire-station-94-captain-roberts-discusses-his-pass

In my opinion, Fire Stations, staffed by professional firefighters and paramedics, are somewhat like an insurance policy that you hope you never need. While insurance may reimburse you for your loss, the Fire Station personnel may actually save your home and your life. I think the City should look elsewhere to cut the budget. I would start with the Finance (Administrative Services) Department budget, in which the “Salaries & Benefits” have grown by $382,729 since 2013 (See page 102 of Budget). I’d rather have my tax dollars invested in firefighters, than bean counters.

No matter how City officials try to downplay this decision in terminating the CalFire contract, in the end its a blow to public safety and makes the downtown less safe.

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