SAN BERNARDINO >> A second of the city’s fire stations has been unstaffed since July 1 and will stay that way until new firefighters can begin responding to calls, a month or more from now.
The paramedics at Station 223, on Medical Center Drive at 21st Street, had previously been “browned out” — temporarily closed — because of staffing issues, but now is always unstaffed like Station 230, the fire station at Mill Street and Arrowhead Avenue that has been closed for budget reasons since October.
This time, says City Manager Allen Parker, it’s not that the city doesn’t want to spend the money to staff the station — it’s that too many firefighters have stopped working for the city and the remainder are stretched too thin.
“In my opinion, this is bordering on a crisis,” Parker said, adding that he thinks that at one point a shortage of firefighters had recently closed four stations at a single time.
Firefighters continue to respond to every fire, medical aid call or other emergency they’re called to, said acting Fire Chief Tom Hannemann.
“The guys are extremely hard-working, dedicated employees,” Hannemann said. “They strive to, day to day, provide the best service in the region. They’re going to continue to provide the best response.”
Response times remain slower than the industry standard, but the Fire Department is working toward that benchmark, he said.
The city has been actively recruiting new firefighters since February, but it’s a lengthy process, Hannemann said. There are now 14 firefighters ready to be hired, but once they start it will take another four-to-five weeks of city-specific training before they can begin responding to emergency calls.
That will make a big difference for a department that now has 20 vacant positions — 14 firefighter/paramedics, 5 engineers and a captain — on top of anyone gone on a particular day because of injuries, sick time or personal time off, he said.
In the meantime, some positions are being left unfilled when fire administrators consider it necessary, which the City Council voted to allow in October over the objections of the fire union.
That’s being felt mostly at station 223 because that’s what consultant Citygate Associates recommended after a thorough investigation of the Fire Department, he said.
But it’s unfair to always close one station — especially one that happens to be in a particularly poor, minority area of the city, charges Councilman John Valdivia.