Firefighters from Ocean Beach’s Station 15, at 4711 Voltaire St., are sleeping in a Liberty Station hotel while their station is undergoing remodeling, expansion and upgrades.
The total project at Station 15 will cost $1,030,714 according to Alec Phillip, acting San Diego Fire-Rescue public information officer. The project is expected to last five months and is expected to be completed later this year. The project description says a new kitchen/dining room/meeting room and ADA restroom for public use will be built along with associated infrastructure improvements including plumbing, electrical, mechanical, HVAC and communication systems.
Their station, at the intersection of Voltaire and Ebers streets, is unfit for crews to live in during the project, so crews are moving about each day while continuing to respond to emergency calls in their regular coverage area.
During daylight hours, the big red rig has been a welcome guest at newly opened Station 22 on Catalina Boulevard. There is plenty of room for its four-person crew. They are able to reach their regular coverage area of 2.32 square miles in the beach community quickly. But the department’s dispatch system continues, as always, to send the nearest equipment, and that may sometimes be from Station 20 on Kemper Street near the Valley View Casino Center.
Station 20 houses a fire engine, fire truck and paramedic unit and is often dispatched to calls in the Ocean Beach and Point Loma areas as well as its own.
But during the evening, Station 22 does not have enough sleeping quarters, so Engine 15 and its crew move to Liberty Station where personnel are spending nights in rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel. From here, they are being dispatched to emergencies at such nearby locations as Lindbergh Field, Harbor and Shelter Islands and the Loma Portal area.
During these night hours, Station 22 is the primary engine covering Ocean Beach, once again with support from Station 20.
Another change for Station 15’s residents is eating all of their meals in restaurants, something that is rarely done otherwise. Each crew normally shops for and purchases its own foods and prepares them in the kitchen at each station.
The project cost includes the expenses of lodging and dining for displaced Station 15 crews.
The station was originally located at 4926 Newport Ave. when built in 1915. It moved to the present location in August, 1949 and was built for a cost of $37,000.
In fiscal year 2017, Engine 15 and its crews responded to 2,642 incidents.