Firefighters union says it will campaign against Oakland fire station closures
The city is considering temporarily closing two fire stations to balance its estimated $129M budget deficit.
With the city of Oakland facing an estimated budget shortfall of $129 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year, the city is considering several cost-saving measures that would reduce public safety services, including the temporary closure of two fire stations.
The Oakland firefighters union, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 55, is pushing back, announcing on Thursday the launch of a campaign against brownouts.
Union members say closing firehouses would increase the time it takes firefighters to respond to an emergency, which could be a matter of life or death.
“Even if you reduce the number of fire companies, the same amount of calls are going to come in,” IAFF Local 55 Vice
President Seth Olyer said.
Last year, OFD received nearly 78,000 calls for service, according to its 2023 annual report.
“People are gonna start waiting 15 minutes while their mom is having a stroke, or while their father is having a heart attack,” said Olyer.
Since November 2022, the city has temporarily shuttered Fire Station No. 10 in the Grand Lake neighborhood for renovations, reducing the number of operating stations to 25. In a bleak report published last Friday, the city proposed suspending two additional firehouses for the first six months of 2025, among other cuts. The proposal does not specify which fire stations would close or how many firefighters would be impacted.
