The city of Oakland closed two fire stations this week and may close four more in February due to sweeping budget cuts city officials passed in December.

The city of Oakland closed two fire stations this week and may close four more in February due to sweeping budget cuts city officials passed in December. As fires rage across Southern California, Oakland firefighters are stressing the importance of investing in public services — instead of cutting fire department funding in areas where it’s most needed.

Oakland announced a staggering $30 million in budget cuts for the Oakland Fire Department in December, to help make up for the city’s $129 million budget deficit. But for a fire department that’s already understaffed and under funded, those budget cuts could mean the difference between life and death for some citizens, Seth Olyer, vice president of Local 55, the union that represents Oakland firefighters, told National Review.

After Los Angeles cut its fire department funding by $17.6 million last year, L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley warned in December that the cuts “have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations” and “severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies.” The Board of Fire Commissioner president Genethia Hudley-Hayes said, also in December, that the LAFD was “in crisis mode.”

“People in Los Angeles sounded the alarm. And here we are, less than a month later, with the situation that they predicted could occur actually occurring,” Oyler said. “I’ve been speaking with every elected official that will listen, not only in the city of Oakland, but our state partners, to let them know that we have the exact same situation in Oakland. And not only are the budget cuts in Los Angeles dangerous, but fortunately, they’re a much smaller amount than what’s happening here in the city of Oakland.”

Oakland’s fire department budget is $163 million, compared to Los Angeles fire department’s budget of $819.64 million. Proposed cuts for Oakland amount to “north of $30 million for the fire department alone,” Oyler added, or, nearly 20 percent of the department’s official budget.

All told, Oakland’s number of operating stations could reduce from 26 to 19 by February, if the city follows through on its threat to shutter another four stations. Already in 2022, the city temporarily closed Fire Station No. 10 for renovations. The station, due to the city’s budget constraints, has not been reopened.

“That’s at the point where I don’t understand how we are expected to respond and be able to put out fires,” Oyler said. “It’s a dangerous situation for Oaklanders, and it’s an incredibly dangerous situation for Oakland firefighters. If anything good comes of [the fires in L.A.], it’s that, hopefully, the city will refocus their its efforts on public safety, being one of the core government services, and fully funding the fire department — building on some of the promises that basic government should be delivering to its citizens.”

Two stations that were closed this month are in densely packed and difficult to access areas — not unlike the places in L.A. that caught fire this week.

“Up in the Oakland Hills it’s a very similar, nearly identical, layout, to the areas in L.A. where the fires are happening,” Oyler said. “Real tight, windy roads, and houses that are kind of on top of one another, just because they’re built onto the hillside.”

Catastrophic fires are fresh in the memories of Oakland residents. In Oakland Hills last October, the Keller Fire burned through 15,000 acres and temporarily displaced hundreds of citizens. Some residents still remember the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991, which destroyed more than 3,000 homes, killed 25 people, and cost an estimated $1.5 billion in damages.

But the fire department doesn’t just need resources for fire season, Oyler said.

“We responded to nearly 80,000 calls for service last year. While 70 to 80 percent of those calls were medical in nature, that doesn’t mean that we don’t also obviously respond to fires — which happen a lot, every single day,” Olyer said. “The real issue here is not that the engines won’t be in service to go to a fire. It’s that every single time someone leaves food on the stove, those calls are the ones that turn into kitchen fire, and kitchen fires turn into full apartment fires, and full apartment fires turn into whole buildings on fire. It’s a matter of getting resources there as quickly as possible. And when that doesn’t happen, things have tragic endings.”

The city has also rolled out budget cuts for the Oakland Police Department. Meanwhile, in its Fiscal Year 2023-25 budget, Oakland earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for equitable housing initiatives.

The city allocated $216 million in capital funding for “affordable housing construction and acquisition/rehabilitation projects.” Affixed to the section of the budget that explains the $216 million funding is an “Equity Consideration” which notes that “the additional funding will advance the City’s racial equity goals by facilitating the development of housing units serving low, very low, and extremely low income households, many of whom are comprised of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) household members.”

Oakland also allocated $8.9 million to “create a Rapid Response Homelessness Housing Acquisition Fund,” which helps to “increase the number of affordable housing units targeted to people exiting homelessness.” Also, in a section labeled “Equity Consideration,” the city notes that: “Black and BIPOC residents are disproportionally represented in the homeless population and impacted by the current housing crisis . . . This disproportionate representation means Black unhoused residents are most in-need of housing. The creation of a fund to rapidly acquire buildings and create homeless housing means unhoused residents could become rehoused more quickly.”

In a statement about “budget principles,” the Oakland Mayor’s office said that three principles informed the city’s current budget proposals: “Centering Equity – Centering equity is an intentional effort to prevent exacerbating racial disparities and to reduce racial disparities wherever possible”; “Valuing the City Workforce – Preserving current city staff and prioritizing the wellbeing and professional development of our dedicated & talented workforce, especially during this difficult time and into the future”; and “Strategic Thinking – Encouraging creative and innovative strategies to become a more efficient and effective City. Soliciting ideas for improvement Citywide regarding service delivery, organizational structures, internal processes, and utilization of technology, to become more efficient, effective, and equitable given limited resources.”