In the early morning stillness of May 7, fire broke out in a two-story condominium building housing 19 families in Lakeside.
Arriving firefighters from the Lakeside Fire Department could see flames shooting out the front and rear windows of a ground-floor unit. Before they could lay their hoses, the fire spread to a unit upstairs. Seventeen more condos were at risk as well as other buildings in the complex.
A second alarm was issued. Lakeside needed help.
In El Cajon, meanwhile, Truck 6 sat idle. It would have responded in the past, but now was held hostage in the station by a vindictive new El Cajon Fire Department policy.
San Miguel Fire Protection District was among other jurisdictions responding. It was 5.25 miles farther away than Truck 6. In fact, San Miguel had to drive from Spring Valley through El Cajon to get to Lakeside.
Nineteen families stumbled groggily out of their homes into the dead-of-night coolness at 3:13 a.m. Fortunately, no humans died and there were only three minor injuries. Three house pets were not as fortunate; they perished.
The fire caused $500,000 in damage. The good news is that responding units saved $3 million worth of building.
Why didn't El Cajon's Truck 6 respond?
A land-use quarrel among jurisdictions seems to have spread to another level.
El Cajon wants to annex a parcel of unincorporated land for a Home Depot site. The county, nearby residents and others are opposed. So is the Lakeside Fire Department, which services the parcel and receives property tax revenues from it. If El Cajon wins the land-use fight, the Lakeside Fire Department will lose a revenue stream while still being morally obligated to provide fire coverage.
Ten days after Lakeside asked the Local Agency Formation Commission, a state entity, to block the land annexation, El Cajon retaliated.
El Cajon Fire Chief Michael Scott doesn't call it retaliation, of course. It had come to his attention – he does not remember how – that El Cajon had been automatically responding with Truck 6 on such calls as a two-alarm condominium fire with families at risk. It no longer considers that appropriate.
Automatic aid is built into the computer. Heartland Dispatch automatically sends out units based on who is closest, the type of hazards the location presents, and the number of alarms. Mutual aid is a special request, made by a human from one department to the individual in charge at another jurisdiction. It may take two minutes or more, at best, to process mutual aid requests.
Chief Scott doesn't want to put Truck 6 at risk when Lakeside “has nothing comparable.” Truck 6 has a 100-foot ladder, while Lakeside's engine has one just 65 feet long. There are other distinctions a battalion chief would recognize. The insurance industry does not. It considers the units the same for purposes of setting standards.
Speaking of not having comparable units, the El Cajon Fire Department has no brush fire rigs. When a brush fire breaks out in El Cajon, Lakeside automatically responds.
It speaks to the professionalism of Lakeside Chief Mark Baker and the men and women of the department that it will not reduce automatic aid one iota.
El Cajon is hungry for a big-box retailer and the sales tax revenue it produces. But politics should not trump public safety. El Cajon's pettiness is unconscionable.
