In the three months since firefighters abandoned a north Seattle station long suspected of sickening crew members stationed there, response times in the area have slowed by as much as 60%.
Between June 18, when Station 31 — nicknamed the “cancer house” by firefighters — was shuttered, and July 31, responding units took a minute and a half longer than normal to respond to fires and basic medical incidents in the area near Interstate 5 and North Seattle College, according to data provided by the Seattle Fire Department. For advanced medical responses, units took nearly two minutes longer.
Where Station 31 firefighters and paramedics once arrived to basic and advanced life support incidents in around three minutes, those times are now closer to five minutes. It now takes nearly six minutes for the first unit to arrive on the scene of a fire, up from just over four minutes before the closure.