Beloved Orinda firehouse to shut down

ORINDA, Calif. (KGO) -- A petition drive is underway to save a beloved firehouse in the East Bay that could be closed after a new firehouse is built a few miles away.

The Honey Hill fire Station serves Moraga and Orinda.

The district refers to this as a move and not a closure. The idea would be to move the station to a proposed new station just over the Lafayette border.

The Orinda-Moraga Fire District would save about $1 million, but some of the neighbors ABC7 News spoke with say it's not about money.

It's a fire station that has been nestled in the north Orinda hills for more than 50 years and while residents acknowledge Station 43 doesn't get a lot of calls, they certainly don't want it to go away. "Our main concern really is the increase in response times. Orinda, the north part of Orinda is already not well served by the fire district because response times are very long to a lot of areas and this would increase response times by two minutes," Ellen Dale said.

"The question of response times, while we're still waiting for the analysis," Moraga-Orinda Fire Chief Stephen Healy said.

Healy says closing Station 43 and moving into a new facility 7/10ths of a mile away in partnership with Contra Costa fire makes a lot of sense. "In the past, the distribution of mutual and automatic aid between Moraga, Orinda and Confire was about two to one. They were coming here twice as much as we were going there. Now, over the past couple of years, it's become much more even in its distribution," Healy said.

North Lafayette has been without a fire station for three years.

Last year, Moraga-Orinda fire purchased a lot just over the Lafayette border with the intent of building a new Station 46 that would serve the needs of both communities.

But residents near the Honey Hill Station worry moving their fire services even a short distance would come at too high of a price.

"I have a son who in 2004 had a hemorrhage. We lived on La Espiral and the Honey Hill Station responded immediately," Judy Sherwood said.

Moraga-Orinda fire has commissioned a study to determine exactly how response times would be impacted.

A series of community workshops are also planned for this Spring.

To find out