Budget 'brown out' slows response to burning Curtis Park house

Sacramento Bee, 11/2/09

By Andy Furillo

A budget-cutting "brown out" slowed Sacramento city firefighters response tonight to a two-alarm fire that burned a Curtis Park family out of its home, officials said.
Capt. Jim Doucette said no engine was available in the Martin Luther King Boulevard station south of Broadway - the closest one to the house in the 2500 block of 5th Avenue that burst into flames around 7:56 p.m. He said an engine from the station on 24th Street, south of Sutterville Road, responded to the fire that severely damaged the two-story residence.
Nobody was hurt, Doucette said.
The city shuts down one engine company every day in the its "brown out" plan to save money because of recent budget cutbacks, Doucette said. He said today's shutdown of Engine Company No. 6 added three minutes to the response time in the Curtis Park fire.
Doucette said a battalion chief, a truck company and an ambulance from the Martin Luther King station arrived at the scene before the engine with the water and pump got there from the 24th Street station.
"Yesterday and today, it was engine No. 6," Doucette said. "It rotates every day throughout the city. Tomorrow, it will be another one in a different part of town."
A total of six engine companies, four truck companies, two medic units and 50 firefighters responded to the fire, Doucette said.