Tag: Emergency Response Times

  • City to Expand Two-Person Fire Crews, But Could Skip Over City Heights

    Jason Hewitt and Steve Vandewalle are part of the Fire Department’s Fast Response Squad based in Encanto. | Photo By Jamie Scott Lytle By Liam Dillon Another San Diego neighborhood might soon have relief for lengthy emergency response times. Mayor Kevin Faulconer is planning to add a second two-person first-responder crew to the citywide fleet,…

  • Encanto Sees Quicker Emergency Responses, Mid-City Still At Risk of Delays

    Family members of Rickquese McCoy share memories of him over a memorial in a canyon near their home. McCoy was shot and killed in June 2012. It took fire crews 12 minutes to arrive at his aid. | Photo Credit: Sam Hodgson By Liam Dillon Sometimes solutions to problems are as easy as they seem.…

  • How the Next Mayor Plans to Fix Emergency Response Time Disparities

    By Liam Dillon San Diego’s three mayoral candidates agree. Disparities in emergency response times across neighborhoods must end. “It is the city’s moral obligation to provide equitable emergency services to every community,” City Councilman Kevin Faulconer says in his neighborhoods plan. Broadly, Faulconer, City Councilman David Alvarez and former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher agree on the…

  • The Emergency Response Fix That Slipped Through the Cracks

    By Liam Dillon At a committee hearing in March, San Diego City Council members wondered what had happened to the two-person fire crews designed to help get first responders to emergencies faster. They asked Fire-Rescue Chief Javier Mainar to deliver a report on the crews’ status. Almost six months later, no report exists. No one…

  • Emerald: Why We Need to Invest in the Fire-Rescue Department

    By Marti Emerald In May, the San Diego City Council scraped together the final dollars needed to build a fire station in Mission Valley. The long-awaited approval gave Fire Chief Javier Mainar a sense of relief. He said he had been waiting for a station in the valley since he first became a firefighter, 30…