Sacramento rejects further reduction in fire engines

The city of Sacramento will not be shelving any more fire engines – for now.

The City Council voted Tuesday not to expand its program of removing fire engines from service as it grapples with historic budget shortfalls.

Since July, the Sacramento Fire Department has covered the city with just 22 of its 23 fire engines each day. It rotates the engine it takes out of service among nine stations for 48 hours at a time. The move has led to an increase in response times in areas of the city where a rig was off-line.

The Fire Department was scheduled to begin taking a second engine off the streets beginning March 1, but Tuesday’s vote scrapped that.