City Council calls home fire response ‘unacceptable’

A home on East D Street in Tehachapi is only a mile from the Kern County Fire Department’s Station 12 on Curry Street.

When the house caught fire on March 8, it sounded like bombs going off, said a neighbor who lives two doors down. She heard the noise about 8:15 p.m. Around 9 p.m., when westerly winds began blowing sparks toward her home, she called, she said, noting that she knew “everyone in the neighborhood had (already) called.

“The fire was growing, and I could not believe the fire trucks were still not here,” Sue Page wrote in a letter to the city shared at Monday night’s meeting of the City Council. “Although the firemen did a great job when they

did get here a few minutes later, I am left with some serious questions.”

Capt. Andrew Freeborn, public information officer for Kern County Fire Department, said Monday afternoon that personnel from Station 12 were responding to a call in Sand Canyon when the structure fire in the city was reported.

Units were dispatched to the D Street fire at 8:28 p.m., Freeborn said. Patrol 11, from Keene, arrived on scene at 8:43 and Engine 11 arrived at 8:45, he said, with units from other stations, including Station 12, arriving later.

Freeborn said that Sand Canyon is within the service area of Station 12.

“This is, in fact, an instance when one station is (on another call) in their own district, there’s a potential for another call to happen,” he noted.

But Sand Canyon is outside the Tehachapi city limits and members of the Tehachapi City Council said Monday night that the response to the home fire was unacceptable, particularly because the city already has concerns about the contract for fire service it approved with Kern County in November 2021.

In 2021-22, the city paid the county just under $19,000. But the amount was set to increase to $196,048 in 2022/23, $385,577 next year and then continue to scale up each year to more than $1.2 million in 2027/28.

Concern for its ability to meet those higher costs was one of the reasons the city asked voters to approve an increase in sales tax last November, Councilman Phil Smith said. The sales tax was approved and will go into effect April 1.

Division Chief Andrew Kennison and Battalion Chief Jason Schillinger were present at the council meeting. They listened to council member concerns and answered questions.

Following the lead of Councilwoman Susan Wiggins, Mayor Michael Davies and all other council members — Smith, Joan PogonCord and Keith Sackewitz — called the response unacceptable.

Smith told Kennison and Schillinger he believes that units from Station 11, in Keene, should have been dispatched to cover the city at the time Station 12 was dispatched to Sand Canyon.

Kennison said the county’s contract with the city does not provide for that.

City Manager Greg Garrett thanked Kennison and Schillinger for answering questions.

He proposed to the council that city staff work with KCFD and bring back more information.