In October, Tacoma's Tideflats will have a round-the-clock firefighting operation for the first time in years after the City Council approved staffing a 24-hour engine company out of the training center there. Right now, there is no working fire station on the Tideflats.
The department recently won a grant to pay for staffing the station starting in July 2018, he added.
Amid recession-era budget cuts, the city slashed funding to its fire department. That meant cutting away firefighting operations in the Tideflats, and opting instead to maintain service in more residential parts of Tacoma, Duggan said.
But with the amount of flammable materials stored in and move through the Tideflats by truck or rail, the lack of a firefighting presence is dangerous, council members said. Puget Sound Energy’s planned liquefied natural gas plant on the Tideflats that will store up to 8 million gallons of LNG was an implied factor in the need for jumpstarting firefighting services.