Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said this week that an incident in Brentwood significantly impacted countywide services while also sharing that delays to a downtown station is now costing the district precious funds.
At its May 20 meeting, CONFIRE shared with the Board of Supervisors that due to a two-alarm fire on May 18 that went 50-acres, east county resources were dispatched to the fire which prompted units from central county to move east–Concord, Martinez and Walnut Creek fire crews. However, with a large fire in Concord, those resources were delayed with longer response times due to the fire in Brentwood.
Meanwhile, CONFIRE also confirmed it submitted its appeal letter with the City of Brentwood seeking a June 10 hearing with the city council regarding the planning commission denial of its downtown fire station—which CONFIRE now says is costing taxpayers and the district precious dollars. Deputy Fire Chief Aaron McAlister shared with the Board of Supervisors that their application for Downtown Fire Station 94 was denied and an appeal letter has been placed with the City of Brentwood – looking for a hearing on June 10.
McAlister also reiterated to the Board and the public, “there is absolutely no risk of the Veterans Hall going anywhere. The veterans hall is not in jeopardy in any way, shape, or form.”
He continued, “We have gone out of our way to actually grant an easement back to the county to leave the disability ramp in place so we didn’t destroy it during our construction process. The Fire Department has a general contractor under contract and all delays on the project at this point are costing the fire district precious budget dollars for this project.”
Downtown Brentwood Station
Contra Costa County Supervisor Diane Burgis stated at the meeting, “we had always intended to rebuild the downtown station, but there is this discussion about another location. Do you want to answer why that isn’t the ideal location and talk about the costs.”
“The fire district during annexation, and leading up to annexation, always considered rebuilding downtown. That has been the plan. Prior to annexation, East Contra Costa Fire examined the option commonly referred to the site by Mary Black School and abandoned that for a variety of reasons which includes the response arch – it has a dead end road next to it so you can only go one direction from that site. The fire district doesn’t own that site. Should we have to consider that site, a significant amount of work would have to be done, environmental research, investigate the dirt before we even contemplate acquiring that and it would add significant time. So that site was never under consideration.
The other site, the public commonly gets confused, we are trying to build two fire stations in Brentwood. The other site is 90, that will be much larger, a battalion type station, that will accommodate a ladder truck and battalion chief office. That site had to be moved because the piece we acquired through annexation was determined to be toxic. So we had to abandon that option and had to acquire a new site in partnership with the county. So we are having to redo a significant amount of environmental work and redo architectural work in order to take the project that was intended for the other location and pick it up and transplant it to this new site. So we are a little bit behind because we wanted to bid those two projects together to get some economy of scale once. But once we had the toxic site, we had to bifurcate and go a different directions. “
Burgis confirmed with McAlister that not only is it going to take us longer, its going to cost us more while meeting obligations much larger than the original commitment.
“We are well beyond what we planned for during annexation and the Measure X conversation,” stated McAlister noting the fire district will have to pick up a significant more amount of money.
Burgis Addresses Brentwood City Council Comments
She stated she heard some comments during the Brentwood City Council Meeting that there were folks concerned about the June 10 meeting claiming they didn’t have enough information.
“I am available for any conversation with anyone at anytime,” said McAlister.
Burgis said her office has reached out as well and is available but were excited for a June 10 meeting with Brentwood.
Photo by Matthew Klee
Brentwood Incident:
Deputy Fire Chief Aaron McAlister provided an overview of the “Walnut Fire” in Brentwood this past week which grew to a second-alarm response – drawing resources from City of Bentwood, City of Oakley and Town of Discovery Bay as well as City of Antioch and City of Pittsburg.
He added, “multiple stations are left open, and it required us to cover this stations. Those stations were covered using stations from Concord, Martinez and Walnut Creek that back-filled behind those companies. At the same time, we had a significant fire in Concord. So we were a little bit short, so we had to pull resources from longer than they normally would have had to come from in order to cover our central county incident that was happening simultaneously.”
Burgis further highlighted the importance of fire stations in East County because all assistance was coming from the west side of Contra Costa County.
AMR at “Level 0”
Burgis asked about recent ambulance availability challenges. Chief Lewis Broschard confirmed that on Monday, May 19 there was a 2-3 hour period where AMR units were stretched. Note – level 0 is when no AMR units are available or are delayed when responding to calls for service with fire units on scene.
Related Stories:
- May 23 – Burgis: I Trust Contra Costa Fire and So Can You: They know What They Are Doing and Care About Our Community
- May 15 – Burgis: Brentwood Planning Commission’s Reckless Decision Jeopardizes Community Fire Safety
- May 7 – Brentwood Planning Commission Denies Downtown Fire Station
- March 19 – Brentwood Planning Commission Punts Decision on Downtown Fire Station
- Feb 2025 – Burgis: Op-Ed: Downtown Brentwood Fire Station Will Return Life-Saving Services, Upgrades Veterans Hall
- Feb 2025 – Supervisors Get Update on East County Service Center, Youth Centers
- Oct 2024 – Letter: Veterans Issue Statement on Brentwood Veterans Memorial Building
- Jan 2024 – Brentwood Gets Update on Two Future Contra Costa Fire Stations
- Oct 2023 – Burgis: New Fire Stations Will Make Brentwood Safer (fire safety)
