More than a year and a half after budget cuts forced it to close, Redding Fire Station 2 is finally getting ready to reopen. It's a move that is cheered both by residents and firefighters.
Fire officials were upset when there was not enough money to keep the station open in January of 2011. But through the hard work of the department and concessions by the firefighters union, Station 2 will reopen on Sunday.
The closure of fire station 2 in early 2011 was very worrisome for Redding residents. But word that the station will reopen next week is welcome news, especially for Redding’s fire Chief Kevin Kreitman.
“I think it is great to see us get this station back, it has had an impact with us regarding our responses in the community and it will be helpful having that,” said Kreitman.
For the last year and a half, Station 2's area has been covered by Station 1 and Station 3, but the added travel distance increased response time.
“The biggest thing that we will see is that we will be moving back to the response times that we had prior to the closure of this station,” said Kreitman.
It’s all made possible by the fire fighters union, last year they made concessions to their pensions and also allowed the department to start an apprentice program.
“That essentially allowed us to have the funding to necessary to now reopen the station and continue its operations,” said Kreitman.
Starting Sunday, three different two man crews will operate the station 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s expected to make things easier on other stations
“When we have a working fire, in a single family dwelling, we are pretty much at this time, drawing all of our stations to that incident,“ said Kreitman.
Redding has a total of eight fire stations, number two is the only one that has been forced to close due to budget cuts, in recent history.
