Where is Our Fire Station?
North Natomas West of Interstate 5 Desperate for Adequate Fire Protection
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
By Keith Sharward, Witter Ranch Community Alliance Co-founder
Our nearest fire station is Station 18 at 746 N. Market Blvd., near Fry’s Electronics. It is 3.7 miles away and has an estimated 8 minute response time, while most of the City of Sacramento has fire stations in close enough proximity to allow for a response time of about half of that.
Station 18 does have a fire engine but not a ladder truck. Ladder trucks carry advanced equipment and are critical in structure fires and rescues. The only ladder truck in the Natomas Basin is housed at Station 30 in Regency Park at 1901 Club Center Drive.
A “one alarm” fire calls for three fire engines and two ladder trucks. If there is a structure fire in Natomas, a second ladder truck must be dispatched from another area, namely downtown’s Station 2.
Our area has one of the worst expected response times in the entire city of Sacramento, simply due to the distances between our homes and the fire stations and brave personnel who serve us.
Station 43, to be located at the intersection of Arena Blvd. and El Centro Road, has been promised to Natomas residents for many years and was supposed to be paid for by developers’ fees collected by the city when homes were built here. Where did our money go?
Tragedy Strikes Park View
Yesterday morning, ironically during National Fire Prevention Week, a home fire occurred at 17 Stilt Court. Nobody was home at the time, but four firefighters were injured, one seriously. We are extraordinarily lucky that we didn’t lose four firefighters that day. Listen to the harrowing “mayday” call on the radio.
We didn’t dodge the bullet — we got hit hard. Thankfully, this time, the bullet didn’t kill its target.
CBS 13 covered our plight quite well, emphasizing the dearth of fire protection our corner of the city faces.
Our Politicians Ignore Our Pleas
On June 13 2008, the Sacramento City Council voted to adopt a controversial cost-saving scheme that shuts one fire company down for 48 hours at a time on a rotating basis throughout the city. Citizens from throughout the city packed the council chambers and pleaded with our politicians not to proceed with the plan, but they ignored our pleas.
Prior to the vote, North Natomas was represented by Angelique Ashby and me at the podium — you can see our testimony on this video (Angelique at 1:28:58 and mine at 1:45:15).
Coming Soon: A Call to Action
We have known for a long time that public safety resources throughout the city, and especially in Natomas, have been neglected for years. Please get yourselves ready for a call for citizen action to get our fire station built and staffed on a fast track, because there will certainly be such a call, and we’re going to need your help to get it done.