Budget Woes Hit Fire Protection

By most accounts, the predawn three-alarm blaze that destroyed a home under construction and damaged dwellings on both sides could have been even worse.

Fortunately, when the suspected arson fire erupted about 2:40 a.m. that Saturday last month, three firefighters at the nearest fire station had just returned from a medical emergency. It took them four minutes to arrive at the blaze after the alarm was sounded, according to fire officials.

But as the trio struggled to keep it from spreading to two neighboring dwellings, another nine minutes passed before a second engine with three more firefighters arrived from a station across town, according to Richmond firefighters.

The second-closest station was closed that morning of Jan. 17, one of three stations in the city’s core “Iron Triangle” that, since the first of the year, have been deactivated every third day on a rotating basis to save the city money.

“It’s like Russian roulette,” said Dan Colvig, a Richmond fire captain. “You never know if the station closest to you will be closed when you need it.”

The fire station closures in this gritty industrial city of 107,000, northeast across the bay from San Francisco, have triggered the criticism of the City Council and staff. Firefighters, also angered by the layoff of 18 of their colleagues, last month brought a badly disfigured fire victim to a council meeting to underscore what they said was a fundamental threat to the lives and health of Richmond residents.

Richmond officials have said they faced a $9.5-million budget shortfall this fiscal year, which ends in June. The layoffs and station closures may save $1.2 million.

City Councilman Thomas Butt called the firefighters’ tactics distasteful and low, but he said they have a point.

“All that has to happen is for some child or someone to be killed in a fire because of these closures, and the City Council will have blood on its hands,” Butt said. “It’s not that farfetched. Under normal circumstances, [a fire death] would be a tragedy. But if it happened under these circumstances, then people start looking to blame someone.”

California State Firefighters Assn. officials in Sacramento said that cities and counties across the state were closing stations and laying off firefighters in often desperate attempts to deal with severe budget gaps.

“Richmond certainly isn’t unusual,” said Carroll Wills, a spokesman for the group, which represents 30,000 firefighters in 150 local unions across the state. But in terms of the depth of its fire protection cuts, he said, “it’s probably the most severe in the state.”

Aside from the obvious increased risks to life and property implicit in decisions to cut fire protection services, homeowners and renters in those cities face the likelihood of increased fire insurance premiums and rent increases as insurers reassess their risk.

Firefighters and other critics of the closures and layoffs acknowledge that cities and counties are facing tough economic times, exacerbated by the state budget deficit. They nevertheless fault elected officials for their failure to protect communities’ fire safety nets while allowing less critical municipal services to avoid equally deep cuts.

“Any proposal to close a fire station or lay off firefighters at this point is going to hurt public safety. It’ll mean longer response times and fewer people at the scene,” Wills said.

Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson, acting City Manager Jay Corey and city Finance Director Pat Samsell did not return calls seeking comment. The city laid off its public relations staff last year in a budget-cutting move and recently replaced it with a San Francisco-based public relations agency to issue statements on the city’s financial health.

In Southern California, such cities as Burbank and Long Beach are joining San Bernardino County’s Hesperia and Colton in considering cuts to fire and emergency medical services, according to the state firefighters group. Colton voters, for example, are being asked to pass a utility tax measure next month or face the closure of one of the city’s four fire stations, the association said.

In addition to Richmond, nearly a dozen cities and counties in the Bay Area are either cutting services or considering doing so.

Last summer, Oakland closed a waterfront station near its top tourist attraction, Jack London Square, and furloughed its fireboat, Sea Wolf. Berkeley’s City Council has delayed a decision to implement rotating station closures while negotiations continue with its firefighters union.

John Knowles, who lives in a three-unit condominium next to the Richmond home that burned Jan. 17, said the city’s station closures are “insane.”

He recalled being awakened by the sounds of breaking glass sometime after 2 a.m. and almost immediately seeing an orange glow through his windows from the flames next door.

“I came out with my pants half down around my knees and carrying my shoes,” said Knowles, 58, a pharmacist for Contra Costa County. “When I opened the door, there was this huge wall of fire.”

Sensing that his escape route was blocked, he used a back door and edged along a wooden walkway, facing the flames, to reach the street.

Three others in the building, including his sister on the top floor, escaped unharmed, he said. He credited the first three firefighters on the scene with saving his building, although just barely. The wooden wall of his condominium facing the fire was blackened, and in places the vinyl siding and underlying insulation were melted and twisted by the intense heat.

Meanwhile, Councilman Butt said he felt squeezed by the tactics of unionized firefighters and the specter of city bankruptcy. The City Council has considered a variety of cost-saving measures -- even cutting its own ranks from seven to five members. That proposal failed.

“Things look pretty bleak out there,” Butt said.