The idea began in 2014 with the master plan study. No surprise to CAFD, as they had outgrown the current station.

Then, to the surprise of many, in 2015 Jarden Home Brands offered to donate 13.2 of their 38 acres of land to the fire department to build a new station.

The land acquisition was delayed when Jardan merged with Rubbermaid in the spring of 2016. In October, after the two business finalized merging, the process was again able to move forward.

The land is buildable, has enough room to expand at a later date if needed, the location is central and the new building will take care of all of CAFD's space issues. The location also has "awesome" access in all directions, according to Chief Kevin Schroeder.

"We need to maintain a four-minute or less response to the downtown area and all of the industries," Schroeder said.

Schroeder said the final signatures on the property sale should be written early this year. The only cost to CAFD for the land will be closing costs.

"Jarden has been fantastic to make this opportunity available to us," Schroeder said.

Training is currently done at Station 2 in Scanlon because there isn't enough space at Station 1 on Cloquet Avenue. There have been times training has been in session at Scanlon when a call came in. Firefighters have had to drive back to Station 1 to get the proper equipment before they could respond to the call.

"It would be time saving to have everything on site," Schroeder admitted. "The building we are working in is outdated and outsized."

The Station 1 building was built in 1967 and remodeled in 1990 when CAFD moved in.

"When we moved in, it was already full," Schroeder said.

Equipment is currently stored between two fire stations and three storage buildings. The Perch Lake station was built in 1986 and functions well. The Scanlon station is a renovated school building. CAFD rents space at the Scanlon station for their office, equipment and two tanker trucks.

The $250,000 truck is equipped with a turret, controlled by a joystick inside the vehicle, that shoots out water, foam and dry chemical agents. It also has a hose that can spray water and foam manually from outside the truck.

The vehicle can hold 300 gallons of water and 250 pounds of dry chemical agents, but also can be easily maneuvered into fire emergency sites and can respond to medical calls.

“We needed a unit large enough that it can deliver water but to be small enough that we can utilize it for other things,” said North Spartanburg Assistant Fire Chief Brent Lewis. “We wanted it for fires where you can pull up to it, blitz it, then go back in and do a more detailed knockdown.”

Firefighters at the North Spartanburg station on Asheville Highway were trained on the vehicle and given a rundown of its functions Friday. Several firefighters learned how to shoot water and dry chemical agents out of the front turret using a joystick next to the driver’s seat.

North Spartanburg firefighters worked on the custom-designed truck with manufacturer Safe Industries for about a year before it was finished and delivered, said apparatus sales representative Cameron Marler.

Marler said he didn’t know of any other fire truck in the state with a similar design.

“The reason we’re seeing water go out at same time (as the dry chemicals) is because dry chem will only go 25 feet before it’s absolutely disrupted. What we’re doing is, since we’ve got that nozzle right near it, the water and the dry chem are meeting in the air and creating like a pancake effect and being thrown farther,” Marler said.

Gunn ended his 37-year career with the Modesto Fire Department just a few days after I wrote a column about their rejuvenation of the truck, which requires a driver to steer from the rear as well as the one in the front. Whitcomb continues to work on it, and now has it running so well that it takes eye-opening excursions down McHenry Avenue and through the neighborhoods that lead back toward the firehouse near the corner of Briggsmore and McHenry avenues.

Modesto city officials would love to see the old Seagrave – one of only two known trucks of its type west of the Rockies – motoring down I Street during parades, and you can bet the local city pols would be clamoring for the high-profile ride-alongs. It would be a tremendous public relations tool for the city. Restoring it something close to its original grandeur – paint and patina, polished brass and restored ladders and accessories – would be spectacular, too.

Decisions need to be made soon, though. No one – most of all Whitcomb and the others who have worked on it – wants to see the truck left idle, stored in some nondescript warehouse and virtually forgotten again.

After my column appeared, people began stopping by the fire station, located just yards away from where another piece of Modesto’s history, the Burchell Fountain, once gurgled. They wanted a closer look at the truck, purchased by the city in 1928 and used into the 1960s. Many visitors told the firefighters they remembered it fondly from their youth. Some individuals and others representing service clubs, Whitcomb said, offered to contribute money toward restoration. Local body shop owner Brent Burnside met with the fire crew in May to assess what it might take to restore the paint and patina.

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