Closed and Skipped Fire Stations

[mcjones94]

I was looking at the Sacramento County (CA) wiki page (Sacramento County (CA) - The RadioReference Wiki) and have some questions.

First, why did stations 9, 52 and 107 close? I'm guessing budget cuts?

Second, why are some stations numbers skipped (33-34, 39-40, 43-44, 47-49, 67, 69, 79-80, 82, 85-86, 89-90, 93-94, 98, 100, 104 and 113)? And how are the station numbers assigned?

Maybe these two (three?) questions should be put into their own threads but for now they're just here.

 

[BlueZebra]

I can't answer to Sac County on all issues, but station numbers are frequently assigned as agencies merge into a larger department. In Sacramento, there have been a number of small agencies- sort of like islands- merge in at different times. So stations near each other may have numbers not close to each other, rather, the next available station number was assigned at time of merge.

Station numbers can be have gaps due to variety of reasons. Station closures- due to budget, due to redundancy- too many stations in a given area-, due to re-alignment when new stations are built, or new agencies are added. If growth is intense in an area, a new station will be inserted, and it's number may be far from the numbers in the area.

Gaps can also be created by the desire to identify regions. For example, in my area, stations were numbered in the south and central from 1 to 21. Two stations have since closed (mostly due to mergers). Then the western area was given numbers in the 30s, the mid county in the 50s, and the north in the 60s

In the big picture the number is just a number. But it does get confusing at times.

 

[clanusb]

station 52 was closed either back in the days when it was florin fire district, or during their merger with american river fire. 107 and 54 rotated days for awhile until station 110 was built, which replaced station 107.

stations 33, 102, and 63(?) were closed recently because of budget.

 

[mcjones94]

station 52 was closed either back in the days when it was florin fire district, or during their merger with american river fire. 107 and 54 rotated days for awhile until station 110 was built, which replaced station 107.

stations 33, 102, and 63(?) were closed recently because of budget.

If a fire agency decides to open up a fire station again, could they use one of those old fire stations, or are they just obsolete now?

 

[BlueZebra]

Depends on why the station was closed and what they did with it. Some get sold, others demolished. Some are kept for agency business - such as offices or training.

If closed for budget reasons, the agency will probably keep it for a long time in hopes of re-opening when times are better.

In San Francisco, there are many old stations that are now private residences, occaisionally businesses, or B&Bs. IIRC, one is the residence of the Chief. Land is so valuable in SF, no standing building goes away very easily.

 

[clanusb]

If a fire agency decides to open up a fire station again, could they use one of those old fire stations, or are they just obsolete now?

former station 107was for sale...theres a youtube video about it. not sure if it is still available. (its been stripped of everything)

station 52 is still owned and maintained by metro. the fire buffs had some of their rigs stored there, cert did too up until recently.

stations 33,102, and i said 63, but its 64, are closed but still in operable condition and are being maintained...those were closed due to budget, however station 33 was on the chopping block anyways because of its small coverage area, and most of its calls were move ups to cover Folsom..

 

[mcjones94]

former station 107was for sale...theres a youtube video about it. not sure if it is still available. (its been stripped of everything)

Just watched the video. I think it would of been cool to buy/live in there.

Do you know if someone actually bought it?

 

[clanusb]

No idea. it needed a lot of work to be turned into something live-able. not to mention its not in a great part of town, and no back yard. I do wonder though, what connections were left in place for the radios. Itd be kinda cool to hook up the alerting system into your FTO on a scanner.

 

[mcjones94]

Wirelessly posted (iPod touch: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

No idea. it needed a lot of work to be turned into something live-able. not to mention its not in a great part of town, and no back yard. I do wonder though, what connections were left in place for the radios. Itd be kinda cool to hook up the alerting system into your FTO on a scanner.

That would be cool! They probably removed radio/alerting equipment though.

 

[n5ims]

While not related to how Sacramento County stations are numbered, this page -> DFD Station #10 <- indicates why some numbers were skipped by the Dallas Texas Fire Department.

"The first Station #10 was what the Department today knows as "Old Tige" or Station #5, 3801 Parry Avenue, home of the current Dallas Firefighters Museum. However, because of the location of the station across from the fairgrounds, few people knew the station by its rightful number. Rather, it was called the "Fair Park Station"-even in "The Man in the Leather Helmet," a pictorial history of the DFD published by the "Dallas Firemen's Relief Fund" in 1931.

Then, in the 1920s, the DFD installed a system in the Communications Division known as the Gamewell joker system. Then, like now, the dispatcher notified the companies of a box alarm through radio communications. As a back-up, the box was transmitted on ticker tape (the Gamewell joker system). But how does one punch a zero on tape? Thus, there were no box numbers with zero.

The joker system also was used to designate apparatus in-or out-of-service. Since apparatus numbers do correspond to station numbers, there could not be stations ending in zero. Thus, when the first Station #5 closed, and the joker system installed, #10 was renamed #5.

An Engine 10 did exist in the "joker dispatch era" because 10 ticker tapes holes weren't too long."

 

[Sccafire]

Wiki shows station 9 as being located at 1910 Arica Way Sacramento, CA 95822. That is now Fire Station 70. The Sac City Fire Reserves are located there. Sac City Fire Station 9 is at 5801 Florin Perkins. This station I believe is home to the USAR Team. Station 9 was closed when Metro Fire came on-line.

This information is from 2001. It all could be different now.

 

[kgowen44]

I believe that Station 99 (Rehab and Squad 99) are housed in the old Station 9. They respond on most structure fire responses.

 

[scannerboy02]

I thought the USAR gear was at McClellan

YouTube - Sacramento USAR TF7 Going To Haiti

 

[Sccafire]

I thought the USAR gear was at McClellan

YouTube - Sacramento USAR TF7 Going To Haiti

It very well could be. My information was from 2001. Its been 9 years a lot could have changed.

 

[whiskeytango]

the stations are numbered by area, if you look at the map of them http://www.sacmetrofire.ca.gov/images/stories/files/maps/SacMetroFire_Locations_2009.pdf you can see the regional differentiation.