Thursday afternoon, local leaders were in New Cuyama celebrating the opening of Santa Barbara County's newest fire station.
The new facility, Fire Station 27, will also serve as a substation for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office.
"We were in dire need of a new fire station and substation out here for the sheriff’s department," said Santa Barbara County Fire Captain Scott Safechuck. "The original station was built in the early 50s and has had some minor remodeling to it, but this is a state-of-the-art facility."
Thursday's celebration at the new fire station included appearances by Santa Barbara County supervisors Das Williams and Bob Nelson, as well as Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown.
"The collaborative efforts that they have done really made the decision to make a combined station in New Cuyama a no-brainer. It makes perfect sense. We have another substation in Lompoc that is also a combined station which is a great facility that is also working out well. It is not only cost-effective, but it brings our two agencies together," Sheriff Brown said.
Those at the ribbon-cutting ceremony reflected on how the Cuyama Valley has historically presented challenges for first responders as the North County Sheriff's Office is more than an hour away from most response calls in New Cuyama.
Capt. Safechuck added that establishing a combined service station will improve emergency response.
"It is able to house firefighters and the sheriff’s substation can facilitate law enforcement needs out here. But we get fires out here. We work with the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, Kern County, San Luis County. It is kind of a convergence of corners of different counties here," he explained.
Supervisor Das Williams says their service efforts in the Cuyama Valley are far from over.
"Some things to come along those lines is the replacement of the Foothill Bridge," Williams said. "That is going to be really important for folks to get around during storms or weather challenges, and so these guys at General Services and Public Works will be doing other, other, other jobs to help us in the county."
Safechuck says the opening of Fire Station 27 is coming at the perfect time, as their department has already started to see an increase in response calls as we transition into peak fire season.
Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig says the cost of the new station was $8 million.
