An aging fleet of fire engines.

The need for 9 more firefighters to meet current call demand.

A critical demand for a sixth fire station for timelier responses.

The Manteca Fire Department is playing catch-up.

And it’s a race to make sure outcomes from medical emergencies, accidents, and fires have the best possible outcome for the city’s 90,000 residents.

Manteca working to replace

department’s aging fire engines

Just recently, four of the city’s five  frontline engines had either mechanical issues or required maintenance that took them out of service at the same time

That prompted firefighters to use reserve engines.

Reserve engines are significantly older than frontline engines.

They have a dual purpose: They can be called on when the frontline engine is out of service or, if there is a major fire and either off duty or reserve firefighters are called back, there can be a manned engine available for other calls.

But the city’s reserve fleet not only is older and has more miles on them than reserve engines in many nearby cities, but they include American LaFrance engines.

The company is no longer in business. And parts for older models are extremely hard, and sometimes, impossible to come by.

It is why there is now  a “new” old fire engine responding to calls as a reserve firefighting apparatus.

The city will take delivery of a second used engine in the coming months.

They are 15 year-old and 16 year-old engines being acquired from the City of Fremont for just over $30,000.

Fremont follows the accepted standard of retiring frontline engines every 10 years due to wear and tear as well as increased maintenance needs that can jeopardize the ability for the engine to be available when needed.

Manteca has two frontline engines that were placed into service in 2021.

A new “tiller” truck, sometimes referred to as a hook-and-ladder truck, is being delivered in early May.

It will replace the 2008 aerial platform truck with a 100-foot ladder that serves as one of the city’s five frontline engines.

The aerial platform truck will then go into reserve status.

The tiller truck is more versatile and nimbler than the aerial truck.

Both are effective at reducing the pitfalls and time needed to ventilate structure fires from the roof to contain and extinguish fires quickly.

They also are crucial to fire and rescue needs as buildings keep getting taller and more expansive structure such as distribution centers are built.

The tiller truck, however, can make a U-turn in a residential street, something the aerial truck can’t do.

It also can navigate narrow streets and roundabouts that problematic at best for aerial platform trucks.

The city has purchased a used tiller truck for training purposes.

All department firefighters are being trained how to be the second driver at the back of the apparatus.

Once firefighters get basic driving skills down at the training facility in Modesto, the tiller truck will be seen on city streets in Manteca to further sharpen driving skills and to make driving them second nature to various nuances encounters on Manteca streets.

The new tiller truck costing $1.7 million, even though the city is taking delivery of it in May, likely won’t be put into service until September.

The city also is taking delivery of two new engines in 2024.

In addition, the City Council is being asked to authorize the purchase of two more engines in the upcoming budget.

The engines, that will cost more than $1 million apiece, will take upwards of three or so years to be delivered.

That means they may not be in service until 2028.

Once they are in place, Manteca is aiming to buy two new fire engines every four years to stay “caught up” with fire apparatus replacement.

How the fire department

got into its current position

The current City Council’s decision to play catch up with equipment, fire personnel, and stations is a bid for Manteca to cease playing the “old drill” of skirting by with city services whether it is public safety needs of street upkeep.

Manteca for years has been lagging behind in keeping on top of the needs of a growing city by:

*Not keeping growth fees and service charges up to date to reflect  inflated costs as well as changing and growing demand.

*Not leveraging collected fees to build facilities such as a new police station or acquiring fire engines until also every dime to pay for it was collected. As a result, inflation ate into the buying power of money collected due to soaring construction and procurement costs.

*Not asking voters to approve additional revenue sources such as a bump in sales tax.

The current council and senior city management is addressing the problem by:

*Taking a somewhat less conservative financial approach for major investments by keeping them more in align with actual city growth.

*Requiring new development to pay additional fees for public safety in perpetually to help cover ongoing staffing costs as well as making one-time major equipment purchases such as an additional fire engine or a solid waste collection truck.

*Reworking the property tax split with the county on annexed property when it develops to provide the city with more revenue to service new residents.

*Moving to keep rates for sewer, water, solid waste, and the golf course current in terms of reflecting ongoing operational and maintenance costs as well as long-term replacement of aging equipment and infrastructure.

*Not avoiding making the case for new revenue. The city is expected to do just that with a tax measure on the November ballot.

Manpower needs

The next priority is adding 9 more firefighters to staff a second engine company 24/7 at the Union Road station.

The need is based on the station’s high call volume exacerbated by rapid growth in southwest Manteca.

Most of the calls are taking engine companies more than five minutes to reach once they are dispatched.

The city has a targeted five minute goal given that is the outer limits of the optimum time considered to be needed to have the best possible outcome in a fire or a medical emergency.

Manteca hopes to secure a federal grant they will need to match to help fill some of the nine positions.

Filling the positions in incremental steps over the course of three or so years will allow general fund revenues to catch up with the cost.

The approach the city used to also open the Lathrop Road station by Del Webb allowed the city to significantly reduce overtime costs as the additional firefighters covered others who were on sick, vacation or out on disability due to work-related injuries..

The stop gap-measure is not optimum.

But it does help get more manpower at the Union Road that was by far the city’s busiest station in 2022 with 2,963 calls.

And while data for 2023 has yet to be compiled, Marques noted the number of calls the Union Road station handled last year went up significantly.

There are often times when the Union Road engine is out on a call on their service territory when a second emergency occurs forcing an engine company to respond from elsewhere in the city to further increase response time.

The best solution is building a fire station in southwest Manteca.

The city has started the initial steps to build a sixth station.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com