The consolidating Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (Con Fire) and East Contra Costa County Fire Protection District officially opened Fire Station 55 in Oakley on Wednesday.
The two districts haven’t officially joined forces yet, though the station will be home to a combined crew of both districts, which announced the consolidation in September.
The merger becomes official July 1.
The move will bring 128,000 residents of East Contra Costa under the purview of the larger district and is expected to improve and streamline service.
Con Fire said in a statement, “The staffing of the previously unopened Fire Station 55 is a result of pre-annexation collaboration between the two fire districts and comes at a time of extremely high fire danger across eastern Contra Costa County, and the entire region.”
1. Silliest lecturn ever.
2. What’s up with the dude on the far right?
Well….. that took forever.
Hopefully we can crack the 20 minute response times out to Summer Lake & B.I. and maybe save a house once in awhile now…. not that it matters much to me, unless they get a fire boat !
Right? Thought they had fitness standards. Good luck getting him out of a house if he croaks once he goes in. But he’s probably just admin or a paper pusher now. Good for him for getting that paycheck tho. Someone’s gotta do that.
Pensions, pensions, pensions.
I hope the residents of Summerlake are paying for this? Why should I pay for it living in Martinez? I say bring back the return to source taxes! Your taxes pay for the resources you get. They’ve closed stations in Martinez only to open more in these new communities. 😡
Totally agree with you Bloghog. We live in Walnut Creek and our neighborhood fire station has been closed for almost 5 years. It is being renovated and upgraded and supposed to open “sometime in July.”
Since the voters in East Contra Costa have voted down tax increases 3 times to open their closed stations why should we have to wait for ours to open when we’ve been paying taxes all along. Many neighbors in the Rudgear/Walnut Heights neighborhood have lost homeowner fire insurance because their neighborhood station (Station 4) was closed.As you mentioned we’ve been paying all along, East County hasn’t and they get new and reopened stations while we wait. Thanks Board of Stupidvisors.