Airway Boulevard Fire Station to Reopen

on Airway Boulevard will  be reopened Tuesday, said.

A combination of retirements and unfilled vacancies in the helped free up dollars to staff the station, which closed in July as part of city budget reductions.

"We had some extended response times because of the closure," Miguel said of other fire stations having to pick up the extra coverage. "We really needed to reopen Station 10."

The decision to temporarily shutter the fire station was made about a week before Miguel was sworn in to succeed Fire Chief William Cody, who retired. The closure helped save $1.3 million of the district's $28 million budget, which is paid by the cities of Livermore and Pleasanton.

No firefighters were let go during the cost-cutting measures. Instead, the closure eliminated positions.

Firefighters who worked at Station 10 were transferred to other stations in the department.

“Closing Station 10 was designed to control costs while providing us time to evaluate the most effective service model with the available funding we had,” Miguel said.

The department now has some financial wiggle room after recent retirements and several vacancies that will remain unfilled.

Miguel said he anticipates nine vacancies in the coming months and plans to fill five of them.

In addition, some of the positions eliminated during the temporary closure have been restored.

The current budget is enough for Livermore to employ 48 firefighters. Livermore had 54 firefighters before the budget cuts.

Pleasanton has 56 firefighters on the payroll.

Station 10 will reopen with three firefighters on duty per shift, the level of staffing it had before closing in the summer.

The station serves the northwest portion of Livermore, the area and part of the Interstate Highway 580 corridor.