O.C. Fire Panel Votes for Major Revamp

Despite pleas from a dozen residents, the Orange County Fire Authority on Thursday approved a sweeping proposal to close two of its 62 stations and redefine the role of reserve firefighters.

The 24-member board passed the restructuring plan, which was endorsed by the firefighters union but stirred resentment among reservists.

Fire Authority Chairwoman Susan Ritschel said after the 20-3 vote, “I think this is the beginning of a reserve program that we will be able to sustain. I’m looking forward to getting on with it.”

Many of those who objected to the plan were from Seal Beach, where the issue is emotional, City Councilman Paul Yost told the fire board. “I am extremely concerned,” he said. “I would have liked for us in Seal Beach to keep our volunteer fire department. I’m concerned that costs will go up and service will go down.”

The plan, drafted after a two-year study, aims to improve a volunteer program that has been losing 25% to 30% of its people annually.

“We’re not making these requests because of dollars and cents,” Battalion Chief Scott Brown said before the vote. “This is being driven by one thing and one thing only: We have a volunteer program that doesn’t work and needs to be fixed.”

The authority will close station No. 12 in Cypress, which is small and surrounded by stations with full-time staff. Officials considered it redundant.

Also slated for closure is station No. 1 in Orange, which handles administrative functions and does not respond to calls.

Firefighting responsibilities will be taken from most of the agency’s 322 reservists.

The reservists will play supporting roles at fire scenes and respond to traffic accidents and medical emergencies. The only exceptions will be those assigned to stations in Sunset Beach, Emerald Bay, Villa Park, Silverado Canyon and Modjeska Canyon, which still need volunteers to help do actual firefighting.

Brown and other officials argued that the restructuring is necessary because the reserve program, which at its peak had 600 volunteers, has fallen short on several counts in recent years.

Nowadays, they said, many reservists work far from home, leaving them unable to respond quickly or unable to respond to all calls.

By shifting responsibilities, the agency hopes to increase the reliability of a system that depends mainly on a backbone of 750 full-time firefighters to serve 1.3 million residents in 22 cities and in unincorporated areas.

“Over half the time, our reserves are not able to respond as needed,” Brown said. “By redefining the role of what our volunteers should be doing, focusing the training on the type of call they predominantly deal with, we will ensure the viability of a volunteer program well into the future, but more importantly, building a program that’s safe and reliable.”

Even though her city will not see its service change, Teri Elmendorf of Villa Park told the board, “These volunteers are family. Frankly, we don’t understand why you want to break up our family.”