Fire Station Shift Focus of Public Meeting

The Moraga-Orinda Fire District has scheduled a public workshop for 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, to discuss the idea of relocating its Station 43 in northeast Orinda to a new location on El Nido Ranch Road.

That is a move of seven-tenths of a mile from the current Station 43 on Via Las Cruces. The meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday is at Founders Auditorium in the Orinda Community Center, 28 Orinda Way, Orinda.

The proposed station would be staffed and operated full-time by MOFD as an a public agency partnership between MOFD and Contra County Fire Protection District (also known as ConFire). The partnership is expected to save the MOFD about $1 million annually, according to the notice on the MOFD website.

Earlier this week, Contra Costa County supervisors voted 4-1 to authorize ConFire to continue negotiations with MOFD toward this move. Voting no was Supervisor Karen Mitchoff of Pleasant Hill, the Contra Costa Times reported.

The move is sought to facilitate fire coverage and cover areas that were previously the jurisdiction of a ConFire fire station in west Lafayette, which closed earlier this year.