During the Great Recession of 2009, East Contra Costa County Fire Protection District began closing fire stations, from nine down to only three. Now the district’s board is considering voting themselves out of existence to change that.
From the time a call goes out, firefighters get ready to roll in about a minute and a half. The rest of the response time is spent driving to an incident.
“Throughout the majority of our territory, we should be within four minutes of response to any point in the area and we’re pushing anywhere from eight to 10 minutes at this point,” said East Contra Costa Fire’s public information officer Steve Aubert.
That’s a problem for people living in the remote Summer Lake development east of Oakley. They actually have a new fire station nearby provided by the developer but East Contra Costa Fire has never had enough money to keep it staffed.