Panel to Award Terminal Island Fire Station Contract

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission, concluding that it can no longer wait to improve fire protection of the nation’s busiest commercial port, agreed Tuesday to award a $4.4-million contract for construction of a fire station on Terminal Island.

The decision caps months of study by city port and fire officials on updating a 1985 plan to provide the fire stations, equipment and personnel needed to safeguard the harbor in the coming decades. It also paves the way for purchase of a $4.5-million fireboat designed by a firm owned by former port Commissioner Robert Rados Sr.

The review of the 1985 fire protection plan began last year when harbor and fire officials decided that changes in the port’s so-called 2020 plan, a blueprint for expansion in the next 30 years, required a new look at fire protection of the port.

Noting that “history tells us” the bustling, industrial port cannot escape some major fire in the coming years, Deputy Fire Chief Don Anthony told commissioners that the long-delayed fire protection plan should move forward with construction of a new Station 111.

The station, Anthony said, should be built at Berth 256 in Fish Harbor to provide faster response to a fire in the port’s main channel and outer harbor. At present, he said, the city’s only large fireboat, berthed at the only port station large enough to accommodate it, could be delayed up to 40 minutes in responding to a fire at those locations.

“And that,” he said, “is unacceptable.”

The station, to be built by the Garden Grove firm of John R. Hundley, should be completed within two years, he said.

In moving forward with that project, commissioners also made it clear that they are willing to forge ahead with several other fire protection facilities and equipment in the coming months. Those projects include two new fire stations at Berths 44 and 86 and a new 100-foot fireboat with automation and other equipment that will help reduce the number of firefighters needed at the port.

The fireboat, commissioned in 1988, was designed by Rados International Corp., a San Pedro company whose president is former port commissioner Rados. Last year, The Times reported that Rados’ company originally bid $169,000 to design the vessel but was paid $600,000 after numerous changes were made in the contract during negotiations between the city and the company.

At Tuesday’s meeting, port officials said they are ready to move forward with bids for construction of the fireboat after its design was reviewed by another naval architecture firm at a cost of $25,000. That firm is also expected to win a port contract to oversee construction of the vessel, which officials hope to have in service within two years.