Q: A while back, I had to call the Coos Bay Fire Department about a fire in a brush pile at 3 a.m. The engines responded to Eastside from the downtown station. It took them approximately 20 minutes to get there. Why is the Eastside fire station not manned? Why is Eastside left without protection?

A: According to Coos Bay Fire Chief Stan Gibson, the Eastside station has been unmanned since November 2002, when three firefighters were killed fighting a structure fire. At that time, the department reviewed the safety policies and decided to follow the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommendation of requiring four firefighters on scene before interior structural fire fighting can take place.

Since that decision, the Eastside station, which usually had only two personnel on duty at any time, has been unstaffed. The building is used to store engines and equipment, and there are volunteer firefighters who live in the area but are not assigned to the station.

The department responded to 34 calls in Eastside between Jan. 1 and April 30, Gibson said, and each call took an average of five minutes for the fire engines to arrive on scene. Of those calls, one was a structure fire, 28 were medical assists and five were brush and other fires.

“The longest was eight minutes and the shortest was four minutes. And that can vary based on time of day, traffic and type of call,” Gibson said.

Gibson said each other calls were for different locations around the Eastside area, from very close to Coos Bay and miles out.

“Even if we had people at Eastside, and there was an interior structure fire, they would have to wait until trucks from downtown arrived, with additional firefighters,” he added.