Tucson Standard

A fire station in Pima County could be closing in May if union members and the company that owns the fire station can’t come to a financial agreement. 

Rural Metro Fire provides service for roughly 5,000 residents in the county and closing the station could lead to some problems for the county if the situation is not rectified, according to Nico Latini, President of the Old Pueblo Firefighters Association representing Rural Metro Fire.

Fire station 81, south of Tucson International Airport, takes about 1,100 calls every year and due to their location, it could provide a serious inconvenience to the county if it closes.

“Closing the station would double response times,” Latini told tucson.com.

Since Rural Metro Fire does not have any mutual aid or automatic aid agreements with the Tucson Fire Department, other Rural Metro Fire stations would be responsible for having to respond to calls in the South Nogales Highway area. This increased strain on the other fire stations would lead to the drastically increased response times, Latini said.

Global Medical Response Corp. (GMR), provided a statement regarding the situation of increased costs affecting fire departments all over the U.S. However, they would not address the potential closing of fire station 81.

“Unlike public fire departments, Rural Metro is subscription-based,” GMR said. “This creates additional challenges when residents choose not to subscribe to the service yet depend on it as the primary agency in the event of a fire or medical emergency.”

Latini received an email regarding the situation from a GMR representative.

“Decisions such as this are difficult,” GMR said. “However given the continuing escalation of our operating costs combined with stagnant subscription service renewals and the costs to continue to maintain the overall Tucson fire operation, it has become necessary to take this action.”

Latini said the threatened closure is to motivate employees to renegotiate the pay contracts they just agreed to in October.

“They want us to take pay cuts in order to increase their bottom line,” Latini said.

About nine to fifteen employees will lose their jobs if GMR proceeds to close the station to boost their bottom line profits. The real problem however will be the effect a closure will have on emergency response times in the area.

“This isn’t about layoffs,” Latini said. “It’s about the impact on the residents that live in that community and the lack of services that are going to be available to them.”