Panel Backs Paramedics for Van Nuys Airport

Plans to station paramedics at the city’s fire helicopter operations center at Van Nuys Airport would greatly speed air rescues while maintaining the Valley’s ground rescue resources, a Los Angeles City Council committee concluded Monday.

Currently, paramedics needed for an air rescue must drive to the airport from one of several fire stations serving the central Valley area, according to a Fire Department report released Monday to the council’s Public Safety Committee.

That results in delays of eight to 10 minutes before a helicopter rescue crew can take off from the airport, and temporarily reduces the number of paramedics available to answer emergency calls on the ground, the report found.

Fire officials are proposing adding one part-time and 11 full-time positions to the air operations staff, at an annual cost of $1.5 million.

In addition, the Fire Department is asking for $1.4 million to develop an interim facility for air operations, now housed in overcrowded, outdated and earthquake-damaged facilities built in 1970, the report said.

The department also wants to move the facility away from a nearby Home Depot because the proximity to the building makes it more difficult for the helicopters to land and take off safely.

Firefighters frequently are unable to fill helicopter water tanks before responding to a brush fire because the added weight of water in the 360-gallon tanks requires more room to navigate.

Fire Chief William R. Bamattre called the proposal to build an interim facility “one of the most critical and immediate needs” of the department.

The recommendations are to be brought Thursday before the council’s ad hoc budget committee, which in turn is scheduled to make recommendations to the full council next week.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, Public Safety Committee chairwoman, said the proposals are “something that I am absolutely making sure is in the budget.”

Chick called the changes “necessary for the overall public safety needs of the city” and to ensure that air operations do not interfere with “essential paramedic services to the Valley.”

Both proposals were included in the Proposition 1 measure defeated on the April 13 municipal ballot.

The Fire Department is negotiating with two other city departments--airports and general services--to build an interim facility on a 20-acre portion of the abandoned Air National Guard base, about a quarter-mile east of the present facility.

Plans for a complete new facility, proposed in the defeated bond issue, called for spending more than $41 million on air operation improvements.