Mohr wants the City Council to consider including the new fire station and renovation of several others in the city's proposed five-year capital improvements plan.

The city's proposed five-year capital improvement plan identifies $336.58 million in capital needs for all city departments, including $59.90 million with secured funding and $276.68 million without. The council, which has been hearing presentations from all of its department heads for weeks now, will not finalize the citywide plan until March.

"We're looking at building a station, and I hate to even bring up the fact that we've got this station that was built out west on Six Points and it isn't staffed," added Mohr, referring to Station 5 at 2602 Six Points Road, which was built in 2008-09 at a cost of $3 million but has never been occupied because development expected out there never happened.

"That is not where our need is for our community," said Mohr. "The need is in the northeast because we have excessive travel distance to much of that area."

From Fire Station No. 6 at Central Illinois Regional Airport at 4040 E. Oakland Ave. and Fire Station No. 3 at 2301 E. Empire St. travel distance is more than six minutes and nearly eight minutes to some northeast locations, said Mohr.

"If you're shooting for the six-minute response time (set by the National Fire Protection Association) you have to add in one minute for turnout (preparing to leave the fire station) and one minute for dispatching. So we're running upwards of 11 to 12 minutes to some of those locations."

Planning includes spending $500,000 in the upcoming fiscal year to acquire land at a site not yet determined for the new fire station; $280,051 for architectural design fees in fiscal year 2020; and $2.5 million for construction in fiscal year 2021.

"Our operational budget also would have to be increased in order to staff that station," Mohr said. "We would have to have all of that approved before we would construct such a facility."

Mohr also wants funding to address the aging infrastructure and inadequate heating, ventilation and cooling systems at some of the city's five operating fire stations.

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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