Loma Linda: Second firehouse for city - temporary fire station near I-10

Loma Linda opens second fire station

Looking to provide faster emergency responses to the north side, Loma Linda has opened a temporary fire station near the 10 Freeway.

The station is on city-owned land at the southwest corner of Ohio Street and Redlands Boulevard.

"This is a great thing for the people on the north side of town, where they can have quicker responses to medical and fire emergencies than they had before when we only had a station on the south side of town," Councilman Rhodes Rigsby said.

City leaders had a ceremony last week to mark the opening.

The city spent about $450,000 for the station, which consists of a prefabricated home to serve as crew quarters and a metal building for vehicles and equipment. The money came from city redevelopment funds.

"It's great to have local tax dollars stay local," Rigsby said. "This is the purpose of the (city) Redevelopment Agency."

Fire Chief Jeff Bender said the station was needed for two reasons.

Firefighters are supposed to arrive at the scene of an emergency within five minutes on 80 percent of all calls. But the Fire Department was meeting that standard only about one-third of the time on the north side, Bender said.

About one-third of the department's responses are to the north side of the city, which is considered north of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

The new station "was a big operational need for us," Bender said.

Another factor in the need for the station has to do with geography.

The city is divided by bridges across Anderson Street, Mountain View Avenue and Barton Road west of California Street.

If any of the bridges are shut down in an earthquake, the ability of firefighters to respond to the north side would be severely hampered, Bender said.

"With a large earthquake being one of our greatest worries, we felt it was tactically appropriate to get resources on both sides of the city," Bender said.

The new station is staffed by firefighters who were moved from the main station at the Civic Center on Barton Road.

The City Council last week approved the purchase of a new fire engine that will be housed at the station and used to fight brush fires. The engine, which is expected to arrive around the start of the fire season in the fall, will replace a roughly 20-year-old engine that has mechanical issues and isn't always reliable, Bender said.

The new engine will cost a little more than $300,000. The money will come out of a special account that uses development-impact fees to pay for fire facilities.

The temporary station will be used until a location for a permanent station can be found, Bender said.

The city planned to include a fire station on the site of a large housing and retail project north of Mission Road. But those plans fell through. A permanent station could be built as part of a future development in the area, Bender said.

Source: www.insidesocal.com -By Joe Smilor on April 17, 2009 9:00 PM - Permalink