“Browned–out” fire engine was closest to CA house fires. Did budget cuts effect handling of the fire?
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A roof collapse injured one firefighter. Three others were hurt in the the 3-alarm fire on a 100-degree day in the Del Paso Heights neighborhood of Sacramento. The blaze spread from one home to a second.
Rotating fire company closures left the closest fire station without an engine company and it took seven-minutes for the first pumper to arrive on the scene. The City of Sacramento Fire Department’s official press release about the fire includes information about the closed company. The department also lists its “brown-out” calender of closed companies on its website.
From KXTV-TV:
Fire response possibly slowed by a browned-out Sacramento fire station may have played a role in a three-alarm blaze that destroyed two homes in a Del Paso Heights neighborhood Friday afternoon.
Capt. Jim Doucette with the Sacramento Fire Department said the fire started on the 100 block of Redondo Avenue around 5 p.m. Friday.
Crews were able to get the fire under control, but not before two homes were burned to the ground.
Doucette said Sacramento Fire’s Rescue 20, a truck without water-pumping and hose capabilities, was the first unit on scene, but it wasn’t until Engine 17 arrived at 5:19 p.m. that efforts to battle the fire could get underway.
The engine at Fire Station 20, located on Rio Linda Boulevard, was out of service under the city’s new brownout policy.
Due to budget cuts, the city began rotating fire company closures throughout Sacramento last month, shutting down a single company for 48 hours at a time.
“It did throw us a little behind,” Doucette said. “Whenever that happens, the rescue company has to go into a completely separate mode.”
Doucette said Engine 17 arrived seven minutes after the initial fire call, just over the department’s preferred five-minute response time to emergency calls.
As for whether an on-duty Engine 20 would have made a difference or been able to save any portion of the burned homes, Doucette said simply, “I have no idea.”
Wendy Ayala lost everything but a dresser in the fire and said she didn’t know her neighborhood fire station was closed Friday.
“It’s too bad. If they could have gotten here sooner, maybe it could have been saved,” Ayala said. “It’s sad for everybody.”
The cause of the blaze was under investigation. Doucette said a partial roof collapse injured one firefighter and three others were transported to area hospitals for what appeared to be heat exhaustion. All the injuries were described as minor, Doucette said.
