Oakland Closing Two Fire Stations, Reducing Services at Four More

The City of Oakland moved forward with their plans over the weekend to temporarily close two Oakland Fire Department stations and brown out four more. Fire officials and residents alike are protesting against the actions of the city.

For years, the city of Oakland has been stuck in a deficit. In 2020, the city had to climb out of a $62 million deficit. Last year they were staring at a two-year $360 million shortfall. Just last month the deficit was estimated to be at $93 million for the next year. While Oakland had always made cuts, new spending and massive areas of lost revenue, such as losing all three professional sports teams in the city and companies flat out leaving the city, have continued the spiral.

The current political situation has also not helped in recent years. The recall of Mayor Sheng Thao last month has led to an incredibly unstable situation in Oakland, with multiple interim Mayors expected to serve until the special April Mayoral election. Now with a projected $129 million deficit this coming year, the Oakland City Council moved to make drastic budget cuts for 2025 in hopes of stabilizing the city budget for 2025 and beyond. That led to the Oakland City Council approving $100 million in budget cuts last month.

While cuts were made in several areas, the Oakland Fire Department (OFD) was among the most impacted department. In total, six stations were selected to be browned out, or have shifts reduced. Later, two of those stations were selected to be outright closed until June, with the city relying on a wet winter and spring to keep the number of fires low, then come back under brown out conditions. While the OFD hoped to keep some of the stations fully opened, the station reductions were approved over the weekend, with the addition of the OFD having to lay off three workers. Two stations are expected to closed immediately, saving the city $5 million. The other four are expected to begin being browned out next month.

Closure backlash

Fire officials warned the public following the closure and brownout announcements that slower response times would be likely as a result. As firehouses 25 and 28 are set to close until June, response times can now be as long as ten minutes in some areas of the city when a fire emergency strikes.

“We are looking at all angles to make sure that we’ve covered ourselves with these station closures,” said OFD Chief Damon Covington on Friday. “There are no fire houses that we can afford to close. We need every firehouse we have and then some. Right now, these two firehouses will be closed for the next six months through the end of the fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year, these firehouses will open back up. And if we have a need to continue to brownout firehouses, we will rotate to different firehouses from there.

“I don’t want the misconception that there’s no impact here, because there is an impact, there’s a great amount of impact. What our job is, is to figure out how we can lessen that impact to the public.”

Oakland Firefighters Union Local 55 President Seth Olyer has said that he will fight against the closures, and that a renegotiation of the labor contract is now not out of the questions because of the heightened workload.

“Our workload is heavier than most departments in the Bay Area, just based on our fire load and call volume and everything else. My members have been forced to do more with less for a long time. I jokingly say the Oakland Fire Department runs on bungee cords and duct tape.

“It’s naïve to think that–again, I don’t say this lightly–to think that people won’t be hurt or killed because of these decisions.”

Fire control experts told the Globe on Monday that the closures and brownouts are now risking the lives of residents because of the higher response times.

“Think of Oakland as an ocean liner,” explained Chuck Willis, a former fire department captain and current fire control consultant, to the Globe. “Right now, they just had enough life boats. But the closure of one station they made last year, piled with these two temporary closures and the ones getting reduced service. It’s like the liner took out several of lifeboats and were hoping on calm seas.

“Larger cities need several firehouses spread around. These are trucks we’re talking about. You just can’t have fewer but larger stations and expect the same kind of service as one where there are smaller stations but way more spread out. You can tell from all the fire fighters speaking on this that they do not agree with all this. It isn’t about saving jobs or anything like that. It’s about public safety. It’s about saving lives. Oakland is really rolling the dice here.”

More on the OFD cuts is expected to be released later this week.