Chico Fire Cutting Jobs, Shutting Down Equipment
As fire season heats up the number of Chico firefighters Cutting equipment is going down.
"What we've decided to do here in Chico is close one company here are Fire Station 1," explained Chico Fire Department Chief James Beery.
The department is slashing three positions to reduce operating costs, but closing the budget gap opens up other holes in the department.
"Just losing the one person per shift and those three positions forces us to do something drastic," said Beery.
Those drastic options include closing a city fire station, implementing rolling brown-outs, or shutting down an engine. Department leaders have decided removing Engine 1 is their best chance of keeping response times down.
"This will impact it but not to the extent of if we just closed a fire station and just said your out of luck over there," said Beery.
Removing a city engine means an increased workload for the Butte County Fire Department, which is already down one station a day because of budget related brown-outs.
"When there's less total engines in the county, the mutual aid is effected when you have a major incident," Butte County Fire Department Chief George Morris.
The proposed cuts will go before the Chico City Council on June 15th and should take effect in early July.