Longview firefighters are having increasing trouble reaching fires within six minutes, the national goal, particularly in West Longview, but officials say the city doesn’t have the money to do anything to reverse the trend.
A 2011 consultant’s study recommended doubling the number of fire stations to four and moving the one on 38th Avenue farther west. It also called for remodeling the main station on Commerce Avenue. The total price tag of all those projects was $40.5 million at the time of the study.
But the city recently decided against allocating money even to plan for the first phase of the expansion — a $13.9 million station recommended for the corner of 30th Avenue and Ocean Beach Highway, near Fred Meyer. The 2011 report recommended the city construct the station within one to five years.
“It was going to give us better operational capability and better ways to serve the community,” Fire Chief Phil Jurmu said. “It’s not a catastrophe. We’re still responding the best we can.”
City Finance Director Kurt Sacha said the city this year couldn’t afford the multimillion-dollar price tag for the construction.
“We don’t have that money sitting in the back of Kurt Sacha’s pockets,” City Manager Dave Campbell said.
Response times for West Longview are slower because much of the department’s response team is located on Commerce Avenue, Jurmu said.