Budget Causes Closure of California Fire Station

San Bernardino firefighters said goodbye to a 50-year-old fire station Saturday.

A morning ceremony took place marking the closure of station No. 230 at Mill Street and Arrowhead Avenue.

Budgetary issues were the cause of the closure, said fire engineer Mike Arvizo, spokesman for the San Bernardino Fire Department.

Firefighters spent most of Friday packing up gear, moving it out of the station and taking it to other facilities, Arvizo said.

The nine firefighters who worked there have been reassigned, and departmentwide, four people were demoted to adjust for the closure, Arvizo said.

A medic engine – a long, red truck with hoses staffed by three people, including a paramedic – will also be taken out of service at station No. 224 on 26th and E streets and be replaced by a two-person medic squad using a large pickup truck with no hoses, Arvizo said.

This leaves station 224 with a ladder truck and a squad truck, but nothing with hoses. To respond to fires near that station, an engine from another area will be sent, he said.

“Response times will obviously be affected in that area,” Arvizo said.

Firefighters are concerned residents weren’t notified of the closure, he said. “We feel like nothing was being told to anybody,” Arvizo said. “We don’t want them to show up with a medical emergency and no one to be there.”

Station 224 handles about 5,000 calls per year, making it the second-busiest in the city, Arvizo said. He didn’t know how many calls were responded to out of station 230.

The closure leaves the city of about 213,000 residents with 11 fire stations.

Stephen Wall also contributed to this report.