STOCKTON – The Fire Department’s Truck Co. 4 was gut-punched Wednesday morning.
A casualty of the city’s yawning budget deficit, the company now faces likely closure and the reassignment of its firefighters throughout the city.
Fire Chief Ron Hittle visited the station around 10 a.m. to deliver the news personally. It was the first time most firefighters, including those assigned to Truck Co. 4, had heard such a drastic measure was even being considered.
“I knew something big was coming, but I had no idea it would be a company,” Truck 4′s Capt. Randy Howard said.
The likely closure of the truck company, stationed along with Engine Co. 4 at Robinhood and Burke Bradley drives, will shave an estimated $1.73 million off the city’s $23.5 million budget deficit. That savings comes with an increased risk to the safety of the public as well as to firefighters, Hittle said.
“Any reduction in the current staffing of engine and truck companies will result in longer response times and pose an increased risk to public and firefighter safety,” he said.
The Fire Department will continue to look for other savings that could substitute for the loss of Truck Co. 4, Hittle said. The firefighters union already has agreed to sacrifice a $1,200 annual uniform allowance and a 3.68 percent cost-of-living salary raise that started in July – those concessions will save the city about $224,000 and $703,000, respectively.
Howard said the effects of Truck 4′s mothballing will be felt all over the city.
“The ripple effect will go far and wide,” he said.
There are only four truck companies in Stockton – one in the north and two in the south, with Truck 4 in the center. Its primary coverage area extends roughly from Harding Way to Hammer Lane. It includes the old, multilevel, high-density buildings on the campus of University of the Pacific, the architecturally eccentric Sherwood Mall and Quail Lakes, the site of the largest residential fire in the city’s history.
A truck, unlike an engine, does not carry hoses; it carries ladders, chain saws and other rescue tools, like the Jaws of Life. A truck’s crew is concerned with venting buildings – cutting holes to release heat – and rescuing people from burning homes, wrecked cars and malfunctioning machinery.
In Stockton, the standard response to a single-alarm structure fire is three engines and two trucks. The second truck is a backup, there in case the fire suddenly turns much worse.
Division Chief Paul Willette said that role was added after a 1997 fire on Mendocino Avenue, in which two Stockton firefighters, Brett Laws and Bryan Golden, were killed when a second-story addition collapsed on them.
“We all know how quickly things can get outside the box,” Engineer Tim Hill said.
But the potential closure of a truck company affects more than just backup. If any two Stockton truck companies are occupied, that leaves only two other trucks to cover the rest of the city. With one fewer truck, responses will be slower as firefighters have to travel farther to reach emergencies, and the risk that the Fire Department will be overstretched is much greater.
The delay in the arrival of a truck company places citizens and firefighters at risk, Howard said. Truck crews ventilate burning buildings, freeing trapped smoke and gas, and releasing heat. That allows the remainder of the truck’s crew to begin rescue and recovery and protects hose crews from flashover, allowing them to fight deeper into a building.
“A sweet sound is that chain saw running, because you know what’s coming,” Howard said.
The Stockton Fire Department operated with three truck companies from 1969 to 2006, when Truck Co. 7 went into service.
An October 2007 report on the Stockton Fire Department’s coverage found that even with the addition of a fourth company, coverage was “already thin in some areas” and would be stretched beyond its limit by future growth.
Written by Christian Burkin
The Stockton Record Staff Writer
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