OAKLEYFour years after it broke ground and more than two decades after it was envisioned in Contra Costa County’s far eastern edge, a new fire station has opened on East Cypress Road in Oakley.
East Contra Costa and Contra Costa fire protection districts, which will jointly staff Station 95, previously called Station 55, marked the occasion Wednesday with a ribbon cutting ceremony and speeches from many of those involved in making what once seemed impossible happen.
“Today’s a celebratory day, we should be celebrating, we should be glad, we should be rejoicing in all of it,” East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Chief Brian Helmick said. “For many, many decades, the concept of adding another station sustainably – which means that we do it year after year after year – has been a tremendous struggle.”
The opening of the $10 million station comes one month before Contra Costa Fire Protection District will annex East Contra Fire Protection District, which has serviced the area since 2002 when the Bethel Island, East Diablo and Oakley fire districts combined forces.
“We were inadequate service levels for decades, but understand there’s a shot in the arm today and we have a cure,” Helmick said.
The additional station is expected cut response times in half for those in the area primarily served by Station 95, such as Oakley, Bethel Island and Knightsen. It’s also expected to shorten fire and EMS response times by 90 seconds or so in other areas of the district that will benefit from the ripple effect of having an extra station to cover calls farther east.
“This station opening up … it can mean an extra 90 seconds, which means we might be able to help someone that’s having a stroke or a heart attack or a baby that’s suffocating,” Contra Costa Supervisor Diane Burgis, whose district includes far East Contra Costa, said. “Those 90 seconds are going to be huge, gigantic.”
The new station represents a landmark increase in services, and a reflection of what the county can expect to see from the newly expanded Contra Costa Fire Protection District, Helmick said.
“For most fire chiefs, the opening of a fire station is just a great day,” Contra Costa Fire Protection District Fire Chief Lewis Broschard said. “This is so much more than that, because this day actually is one of the first tangible steps and effects of this annexation effort and there is more to come.”
Fire Chief Helmick, meanwhile, highlighted the historical significance of the new station in the long underserved district, which has been covering 249 square miles with only three fire stations in recent years.
“It’s hard to appreciate what’s being done here today, if you don’t understand our past,” Helmick said in thanking the firefighters, including volunteers, who previously serviced the area.
The new station, Helmick noted, is only a mile and a half down the road from Ranch Lane where the Bethel Island Fire Protection District Station 95 stood from 1947 until 2002 when East Contra Costa Fire took over. The building was condemned in 2008, leaving the closest fire station more than eight miles away on O’Hara Avenue.
Station 95 includes a 7,500-square-foot building with two bays for fire engines and 2,500 square feet of dorms, a kitchen, multipurpose room, restrooms, storage and office areas.
Staffed with a three-firefighter engine company, the new station is equipped to dispatch on either its standard fire engine or its specialized off-road wildland firefighting engine and is expected to increase firefighting capacity by 33% in East Contra Costa, officials said.
The station will have an advanced life support crew, “a rolling emergency room” staffed by a paramedic, as well as emergency medical technicians.
“With ConFire, all of our stations run with paramedics, this station will be no different,” Broschard said. “So this represents a sea change in operations and capability by being the first advanced-life support paramedic-capable station in the East Contra Costa Fire District.”
The new station represents a landmark increase in services, and a reflection of what the county can expect to see from the newly expanded Contra Costa Fire Protection District, Broschard added.
“For most fire chiefs, the opening of a fire station is just a great day,” he said. “This is so much more than that, because this day actually is one of the first tangible steps and effects of this annexation effort and there is more to come.”
Broschard called the opening of this station “very strategic,” noting it “will provide benefits throughout the entire system.”
Though completed in 2020, Station 95 could not open because East Contra Costa Fire Protection District lacked money to staff it – that is until county Measure X sales tax monies provided funds for the firefighters and ConFire agreed to annex the smaller fire district late last year. In the meantime, the station served as an administrative office for staff providing services to East County.
Station 95 will be the second in Oakley and the fourth in East Contra Costa, with others in Brentwood and Discovery Bay. Another one, Station 51, is planned for Empire Avenue in Brentwood, with funding coming from the recent federal appropriations bill and championed by Congressman Jerry McNerney and Sen. Alex Padilla. Also in the works are replacements for downtown Brentwood Station 54, a new Station 86 in Bay Point and the reopening of Station 4 in Walnut Creek.
Recent studies have called for nine stations to provide adequate coverage for the more than 120,000 residents in the East Contra Costs Fire Protection District area, fire officials said.
The new Oakley fire station itself is part of a 2006 development agreement that stipulated that Shea Homes must build the facility “prior to the occupancy of the 600th residence” of its nearby Summer Lake development. It wasn’t until 10 years later, though, that the city sued the developer to get it to pay up, with Shea Homes giving $3,120,000 and donating a one-acre parcel on the northwest corner of East Cypress Road and Summer Lake Drive as part of the settlement agreement for the station.
Source: www.mercurynews.com