SAN DIEGO —
The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department chief said as of Monday 131 firefighters were in isolation due to COVID-19. That number was up from 113 reported on Sunday. With available staffing low, the department put emergency brownouts in effect.
The department closed its doors on some engine companies around San Diego but is not closing down entire stations. Station 28 in Kearny Mesa will be part of a brownout on Tuesday.
“We just do not have enough firefighters right now to staff all of those units there,” said SDFRD Chief Colin Stowell.
He said he expects things to get worse before they get better. The emergency brownouts he started means selected stations with two units will be scaled back to one.
“So, the community will still have a level of protection with one of those units, but it just does not have both units in service,” Stowell said. “What we want to make sure that we are clear to say is that we're not leaving any community completely unprotected. We're not closing down any fire stations.”
One unit is made up of four people and as many as seven units could be shut down on any given day meaning brownouts would give as many as 28 employees - many of whom have been working a lot of overtime and are exhausted - a much-needed break.
Unfortunately, COVID has also been running through the fire academy delaying the arrival of reinforcements.
"We suspended them today for one week to kind of let things calm down,” Stowell said. “We had six positive cases within that academy and the last thing we wanted to do was run through the academy and take out all the recruits.”
While Chief Stowell fears that more firefighters will test positive for COVID this week, he's hopeful that a recent change in CDC guidelines - shortening the isolation period from 10 days to 5 - will help with staffing.
"We do have a lot of folks that tested positive, had maybe one day of symptoms, maybe no symptoms at all, and are ready to come back to work and before these changes in the guidelines, we were unable to bring them back to work that quick,” he said.
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