CAL FIRE in San Luis Obispo County is shifting how it groups battalions to better serve its communities.
A new San Luis Obispo Battalion with serve areas around the city, including the airport and Talley Farms, and a new South Coast Battalion will serve Nipomo, the Mesa area and Oceano.
Nipomo is one of the fastest-growing areas in the county, and local Joseph Brown says it may need more resources.
“We don’t have that many resources out here, so having more will cut down response time and it’ll make the community much safer,” Brown said.
Ryan Grebe, the public information officer for CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo, says resources can run thin in developing communities.
“There's more call volume," Grebe said. "There's more people in that area. There's more need for emergency equipment to respond, so if you get multiple calls in one response area, you start pulling resources from outside that area and that increases your response time.”
He said getting ahead of the curve is crucial and this change sets the groundwork for a new station to be built near the Dana Reserve.
“San Luis Obispo County Fire Department is striving to lower their response times to emergencies," Grebe said. "Part of that is building these new fire stations and getting staffing, so this reorganization is really the first step."
While this is not a visible change to the community, it will have a big impact to upcoming developments by evening out the workload of CAL FIRE chiefs in charge of multiple stations.
“This change did not affect the community," Grebe said. "This is more an internal change that will affect our battalion chiefs and fire stations, but they shouldn't see any difference in level of service.”
With an area as spread out as Nipomo, Brown believes the potential to have three stations will help during wildfire season.
“It’s so important," Brown said. "Especially with us being in California and our environment with the fire hazards we have.”
Grebe said this is just the first step in developing the Dana Reserve station.
