FIRE CALLS GROW WITH POPULATION FOUR MORE STATIONS TO BE BUILT BY 2009 IN SANTA CLARITA VALLEY.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Plans are in the works to build four fire stations by 2009 to protect residents of scores of new neighborhoods in and around the Santa Clarita Valley.

Urban development might have diminished the wild areas threatened by brush fires, but calls for first responders have increased.

``With the (population) density, emergency medical services are one of our highest-run activities,'' said Battalion Chief Matt Gil of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Roughly 85 percent of the agency's local calls are for medical services, as in traffic collisions, heart attacks, strokes and rescues, said Jason Hurd, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The cost of additional fire stations will be borne by the department and developers. A study is under way to estimate potential costs, but Gil said each station could cost up to $10 million.

The Santa Clarita Valley is now home to nine fire stations. The 16 fire stations proposed over the next 15 years would be divided almost equally between the city and unincorporated area. Of the four in the works toward the east side, Gil said, two are ``vigorously moving forward.''

One will be a permanent station where a temporary one stands south of the intersection of Golden Valley Road and Centre Pointe Parkway. The nine-person station could house a hazardous-materials unit, an urban search-and-rescue unit, a fire engine and a ladder truck.

An environmental study is under way for another one, at Golden Valley Road at Via Princessa, on the east side of the Antelope Valley Freeway. The large station with a new staff would serve as battalion headquarters, with a ladder truck and a paramedic unit.

A station with a five-person engine company and paramedic unit is planned a mile north of Canyon High School, on the east side of Plum Canyon Road.

The fourth -- a five-person engine company -- is proposed on Sand Canyon Road, north of Soledad Canyon Road. The Angeles National Forest lies just beyond the property lines of many homes in the rural equestrian community.

A community-based Fire Safe Council is working with the firefighters to arrange for horse evacuations when needed. Twenty property owners have offered their properties as safe areas. Gil said the department will soon evaluate their suitability.

``There are quite a few situations where it is safer to keep the horses (in the community) if you have the proper area, rather than clogging the roads trying to get them out,'' said Ruthann Levison, the council's chairwoman for animal evacuations.

A domestic-animals census is under way. Meanwhile, Levison estimates that the community is home to 200 to 300 horses and an assortment of llamas, goats and pot-bellied pigs.

Even with a string of new fire stations, Gil would like to see a supplemental hospital built on the east side of town to reduce lengthy commutes to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

The fire danger is moderate now, Gil said, but if hot dry weather lingers and brush keeps drying out, fuels will build up by the end of July.

``It would be like a can of gasoline ready to go off,'' he said.

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

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