The San Antonio Fire District is requesting any information from the public that could help solve the burglary of their Luis Lopez Fire Station that occurred sometime between the evening of Dec. 20 and the morning of Dec. 21.

“Our Luis Lopez Fire Station was broken into overnight or early hours of yesterday morning. The burglars cut our fence, cut power to the building, entered by busting out a window and tore our alarm panel out of the wall.” Katie Sanchez, Captain of the San Antonio Fire District said on Friday. “ Upon entry into the building they stole the extrication equipment listed in our Facebook post. We had a similar break in early last spring where one of the same tools was stolen and recovered and returned to us by the Socorro County Sheriff’s Office about a month later.”

Sanchez said that they were not able to catch an video or image of the culprits because the cameras at that station are only interior.

“We believe whoever is involved has some knowledge of this and that we have an alarm system since they cut power from outside before making entry.” Sanchez said.

The inventory of tools and equipment missing from Engine 52 include two Jaws of life and their battery packs. According to Sanchez, one of the cutters was previously stolen during Feb. 8 burglary at the station and later recovered by the Sheriff’s department in March as part of another investigation and returned to them. She is not sure if the two events are related.

She said that in the February burglary they arrived at the station to respond to a structure fire at 2 a.m., the building had no power and the doors were unlocked. They discovered that all of the compartments on both engines and tender had been opened and tools were strewn all over the floor.

“We were unable to use either vehicle for that fire response since we didn’t know what was operational or what was missing at a that point and would have had to manually open the roll up bay doors after repacking the compartments. We had to respond with an engine housed at a farther station and call Midway Fire in for immediate support.” Sanchez said.

Why the jaws of life would be stolen repeatedly is beyond Sanchez.

“We aren’t sure what other purposes these tools would be targeted for but they are incredibly powerful tools made for cutting and prying apart vehicles. They are very heavy and dangerous to operate without proper training.” Sanchez said.

The estimated cost of damage to the Luis Lopez Fire Department is $2,000 and the estimated value of stolen items is $25,566.29.

Please contact the Socorro County Sherrif’s department with any information.

Jessica Carranza Pino, Editor