Hit-and-Run Incident Damages CA Fire Station, Apparatus

 A California fire station was the target of a strange hit-and-run accident last week that caused around $30,000 in damage to the building and sidelined an apparatus.

The incident happened shortly before midnight Wednesday at Monterey County Regional Fire District's Toro Park fire station in Salinas, KSBW-TV reports. In footage captured by one of the station's security cameras, a car is seen slamming into the facility's apparatus bay door three times.

Firefighters had been sleeping at the station at the time, and they hadn't realized what had happened until the morning. In fact, the station had received a medical call, and crews needed to clean up the damage caused by the incident before they were able to respond.

“The bumper and also the front siren was damaged and on this piece of equipment it jarred the cab, the driver's door will not shut so now the engine’s out of service,” Fire Chief Michael Urquides told KSBW about the damage sustained to the $684,000 apparatus that had been parked on the other side of the station door that had been struck.

Since the incident, the apparatus is no longer operational, which is a concern for the department given the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the upcoming fire season. 

“That's the challenge right now with everything closed," Urquides told KSBW. "We don't know the parts availability, so as we enter fire season, that's our concern, trying to get this back in service."

Officials aren't sure why the station was targeted, and police continue to investigate the incident. Authorities suspect that the vehicle in the incident is possibly a gray, 2015 to 2020 Ford Explorer with front-end damage. 

“We can understand if their personal vehicles were damaged at work or something at home but really from a standpoint it just hurts the taxpayers more than anything to have $30,000 worth of damaged equipment,” Urquides told KSBW.