A potential rendering of the future Fire Station 94 coming to downtown Brentwood. Source: Office of Supervisor Diane Burgis
By Contra Costa County District 3 Supervisor Diane Burgis
The past three years have brought massive improvements to fire protection services in East County. As your District III County Supervisor and Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Board Member, I want to share with you the progress made up to now and information about two new Brentwood fire stations set for construction in 2024.
Two major changes in recent years have increased our firefighting capacity: voters passed Measure X, a half-cent sales tax to improve public safety and other County services in 2020, and East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) was consolidated into Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (ConFire) on July 1, 2022.
With the increase in financial resources and the efficiency gains of joining a larger agency, we have opened one new Oakley fire station, added two new fire crews for faster responses, and upgraded our crews to provide paramedic-level care so they can carry out more complicated medical tasks than EMTs.
The next improvements coming are a new Brentwood station on Empire Road and the return of a fire station in its Downtown Brentwood location on First Street. Fire Station 54 downtown served Brentwood for 57 years before ECCFPD’s budget problems forced it to close in 2014. Thankfully, ConFire has the resources to build a new modern fire station that is capable of housing 21st century fire engines, which are larger than any engine the original fire house designers could have expected in the 1950s.
The requirement for larger garages, modern earthquake standards and other firefighting necessities means that the new Station 94 will need a larger footprint. The County, which owns the parcels on either side of the station, has pledged approximately 3,500 square feet of undeveloped land to Con Fire to make room for this lifesaving community resource. Most of that land would come from the south side of the station, but 1,212 square feet would come from land on the north side next to the Brentwood Veterans Memorial Building.
Some in the Brentwood veterans community have expressed concerns about the new construction, but the fire station would be built on a part of the County-owned land currently used as an unpermitted gravel parking lot and temporary storage units. Neither of the two permanent structures that the Brentwood Veterans Memorial Building uses would be impacted; in fact, Contra Costa County has invested more than $100,000 improving those structures in recent years, and the County is pursuing nearly $200,000 in future funds to improve the building’s fire alarm systems, air conditioning, exterior siding and more.
In the coming months, ConFire will hire design-build teams for the new fire stations, and the projects will go through the City of Brentwood’s planning and permitting process, complete with CEQA compliance and public hearings. If designs are approved in a timely manner, construction of both new stations will break ground in 2024. When they open, Brentwood and the rest of East County will have the highest level of professional fire protection in our history, and our entire community will be safer for it.
So excited to have the downtown station returning; new and improved. As a Daughter of a retired Hayward Firefighter, and a Byron volunteer Firefighter, I appreciate the service you provide.
WAS SUPUSED TO MAKE A NEW FIRE STATION, ON EMPIRE AVE. IN BETWEEN , AMBER LANE, AND GRANT ST. WAT HAPPENS ! ?