Winterhaven public safety move from mobile home into state of the art facility

Imperial County firefighters put their lives on the line daily and are dedicated to protecting the community.

Unfortunately, the Winterhaven firefighters had been operating out of a single wide-two bedroom mobile home as their fire station up until Wednesday.

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors hosted a grand opening ribbon cutting for the brand new, state of the art, Winterhaven Public Safety Facility, Wednesday morning.

Thanks to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, coupled with other outside funding, the $3.8 million dollar facility was able to be built.

The new facility is a combination of a fire station and a sheriff’s office.

It’s fully equipped with dormitories for the firefighters, who sometimes spend two to three days at the facility.

Additionally, the sheriff’s substation will provide services as far out as Holtville.

County of Imperial officials believes the community will now feel more protected by having direct access to more services in the case of an emergency.

County Executive Officer of the County of Imperial, Tony Rouhotas, said, “It’s going to have a sense of community pride when you’re going to have your firemen and law enforcement sitting in the middle of the facility able to serve the public at a moments notice.”

Rouhotas’ deputy county executive officer, Esperanza Colio, added, “[The community] can come to the facility, they can ask for assistance, and there will be other activities that the fire department will be able to provide them by having this facility.”

According to the Imperial County Fire Chief, Alfredo Estrado Jr, this new facility will help firefighters in emergency preparedness and disaster resilience.

The facility can actually be converted into a cooling center in the event the public loses power.

The facility’s $50,000 generator would allow the facility to temporarily shelter and provide services to nearby communities.

The funds for that generator were courtesy of a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

USDA assists rural and outlying areas of the country with financing opportunities to build public service/safety stations, as well as purchase equipment and vehicles for those departments.

The County of Imperial has also secured a five million dollar grant to build a similar facility in Niland and are working on securing a grant for a project in Seely.

The Winterhaven Public Safety Facility (Station 8) is located at 518 Railroad Ave. Winterhaven, CA.