The Daily News of Los Angeles

PORTER RANCH - A new plan to scale down the number of fire engines around the city to save $54 million was met with frustration on Wednesday in Porter Ranch, one of the communities that would be hit hardest by the plan.


While residents at a community meeting said the plan made them feel vulnerable, fire officials tried to assure them that the San Fernando Valley as a whole had some of the lowest call volumes in the city and that resources would be available in the event of an emergency.

"If there is an incident of any large scope here in the Valley ... we (would) send all our resources," Brian Cummings, an assistant Los Angeles Fire Department chief, told about 60 residents who gathered at Sheppard of the Hills church.

The restructured deployment plan, which takes full effect July 5, would replace rolling brownouts by getting rid of fire engines or replacing them with ambulances at several stations. The idea, fire officials say, is to meet demand for medical emergencies, which account for 80 percent of all calls.

The plan would reduce the number of firefighters in some parts of the city and create a "ready reserve" force that can respond to various emergency situations, officials said.

LAFD: FY 2011-2012 Deployment Plan

"We think we came up with an outstanding deployment plan," Chief Millage Peaks told a City Council committee this week. "What we did was look at the core functions of the department, our workload and developed a plan that would be more responsive and more efficient."

Still, residents were not happy to learn that their local fire stations would be losing firetrucks and firefighters.

"I felt we were in the Titanic that crashed and there wasn't enough life boats," said Mary Griffey of Porter Ranch, referring to the plan. "Am I going to be the one sent out with the sharks?"

Members of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City also oppose the plan, calling it misleading because the ambulances would not be staffed and would require pulling firefighters away from their duties or calling them in from home.

"They aren't ready for anything," said Pat McOsker, president of the firefighters union. "It's a sick joke to park in a fire station an ambulance when it's not staffed."

Fire Station 28 in Porter Ranch would downgrade its light force - composed of a hook and ladder truck and fire engine - to just the fire engine, losing two of six firefighters in the process.

The hook and ladder truck also carries the Jaws of Life, an extrication tool used in incidents such as major traffic accidents. Fire Station 8, also in Porter Ranch, would lose an ambulance.

"When you close fire companies or ambulances, response times go up," McOsker said. "And in our business, seconds count and lives can be lost."

Fire stations in Tujunga, Sunland, San Fernando and Chatsworth would lose fire engines. Others across the San Fernando Valley would also decommission light forces or cut down the number of engine companies.

"The Valley has been hit very hard by the plan," McOsker said. "And they should be outraged."

Councilman Greig Smith praised the new system, hailing it as a much-needed update to the current plan, which was developed in 1965 following the Watts riots and has not been changed since.

"We had an outmoded plan, developed more than 40 years ago and based on growth of the city," Smith said. "No other (fire) department in the country uses the model we have."

Staff writer Rick Orlov contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 Tower Media, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
May 12, 2011