Fire Station 15 Closure Will Increase Response Time

Under either of the mayor's budget plans, Station 15 is on the chopping block

Tools

By Kate McPherson
Bio | Email

Story Created: Oct 9, 2012 at 10:14 AM AKDT

Story Updated: Oct 9, 2012 at 10:14 AM AKDT

ANCHORAGE - Certain South Anchorage neighborhoods will be waiting a bit longer for emergency crews to respond to their 911 calls as of next year.

That’s because under both versions of Mayor Dan Sullivan’s budget, Fire Station 15 will be closed January 1 - and this has some firefighters worried.

Fire Chief Chris Bushue says response times will increase to the area. His best estimate is five minutes on a good day.

This means the AFD’s target response time of 4 minutes, 90 percent of the time, won't be met in the Southport Drive area.

“A few seconds could mean the difference between life and death, or whether or not we are able to stop a fire, or whether it overtakes the whole house,” said Senior Captain Mike Ascone, of Station 15.

So far this year, Station 15 has responded to more than 430 calls.

“The next closest stations are 7 at Jewel Lake at 88th and station 9 at Huffman, so that would obviously leave a fairly large gap in between the two stations,” said Ascone.

Chief Bushue says budget restraints left him no option but to close Station 15, as well as a ladder truck in Eagle River.

“At the end of the day we had to make cuts somewhere; I'm just simply given a finite amount of money and it's my job to try and do the best I possibly can with the money that I have,” said Chief Bushue.

The firefighters union says response times could jump to 10 minutes in certain parts of South Anchorage.

“The number of homes that have been built out here, the new schools, the miles of paved road and everything this... whole area has grown and that's justifies having this fire station here for that infrastructure,” said Rod Harris, president of the Anchorage firefighters union.

It takes around $1 million a year to keep Station 15 open.

The assembly is reviewing the budget at its first meeting this Friday.

Add a comment

Name:

Comment: 1000 Characters Left

KTVA CBS 11 | Anchorage, Alaska News and Weather and its affiliated companies are not responsible for the content of comments posted or for anything arising out of use of the above comments or other interaction among the users. We reserve the right to screen, refuse to post, remove or edit user-generated content at any time and for any or no reason in our absolute and sole discretion without prior notice, although we have no duty to do so or to monitor any Public Forum.
This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.