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Del Webb fire station next
Manteca drops carpenter hall conversion plan
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Manteca’s next fire station is now targeted for Airport Way on the northwest corner of the 1,420-home Del Webb at Woodbridge neighborhood.

When built, it will bring several thousand homes in northwest Manteca under the targeted five-minute response time umbrella for emergency fire and medical services plus provide coverage for the Center Point business park going in east of the Union Pacific intermodal yard.
 Pulte Homes – the developer of Woodbridge – is donating the site. Originally it had been proposed for the northeast corner of the neighborhood on Union Road.

It represents a new strategy that was put in motion behind closed doors Tuesday night when the City Council gave staff direction to proceed with the sale of the former carpenters’ union hall at 1080 North Union Road north of Louise Avenue that had been bought for conversion into a fire station using fire frees collected on new growth.

The plan was to close the existing Louise Avenue station west of Main Street and not build the Villa Ticino fire station planned directly across from the Manteca Unified School Distinct office on Louise Avenue east of Airport Way.

The new strategy will keep the existing Louise Avenue station in place and still not build the Villa Ticino station.

The next fire station after Airport Way at Del Webb would be the Atherton Drive at Woodward Avenue in southwest Manteca. It is positioned to cover existing Woodward Park neighborhoods plus the proposed 1,049-acre Austin Road Business Park that includes business parks, homes, and commercial.

The city spent $200,000 or design work to remodel and convert the carpenter’s hall into a fire station. The money came from fees paid for growth for expanded fire services. Assistant City Manager Karen McLaughlin said part of the design element can be used to build the Airport Way station as well as serve as a cookie cutter design for the Atherton Drive station.

“It is much like what the school district has done with elementary schools to save money,” McLaughlin said of keeping the same basic design.

The five-minute response time is a mantra for those who make a living putting out fires and responding to heart attacks.

Having firefighters and equipment on the scene of a fire or medical emergency within five minutes is essential for two reasons:

•The chance of surviving a heart attack or major trauma starts dropping off rapidly after five minutes.

•”Flash over” when fires literally erupt occur within five minutes of the first visible flame.

It sounds like a lot of time, but it really isn’t. The first two and a half minutes are consumed by a call being placed, equipment dispatching and the engine actually rolling out of a fire station.

That leaves 180 seconds for firefighters to reach a structure fire or a major medical emergency.