The Palo Alto City Council voted last week to staff the Foothills Park fire station for the rest of the summer, declining to discuss a funding offer from Los Altos Hills. The town had offered funding equivalent to the cost of operating the fire station, asking in return for access to Foothills Park, which is open only to Palo Altans.
Two summer fires on Stanford University land between Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto had both city councils paying particular attention to fire protection, including the recently closed Foothills fire station.
The Stanford Dish reopened this week, almost a month after two fires burned nearly 200 acres of its grasslands. University officials reopened the park after completing fire-safety improvements, but they said they will close the area again on high-fire-risk days.
Safety department Capt. Nick Brunot reported that two juveniles started the larger Dish fire, which on June 25 burned 171 acres. They were playing with matches in dry grass. Brunot said the case will be forwarded to the Santa Clara County Juvenile Probation Department for review. The second fire, in which 20 acres burned on July 5, is still under investigation.
