|
The Santa Paula Fire Department’s newest Pierce engine will be delivered next month; city personnel is at the Pierce plant in Wisconsin inspecting the apparatus that sports an American flag grill. |
May delivery: Final inspection for
SP Fire Department’s newest engine
April 17, 2015
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
It’s the final inspection for the city’s newest fire engine, equipment that has been on order for a year but is especially needed since the November 2014 Santa Clara Waste Water explosion when Santa Paula Fire Department lost an engine.
The fact that the engine will be delivered next month is a bright spot for the battered SPFD, which is awaiting the return of three firefighters that were injured in the incident that involved toxic chemicals. A city mechanic that works on fire apparatus also suffered from suspected toxic exposure when he later examined the engine while it was still at the site.
The SPFD was under-funded and understaffed to begin with: since last year the city has been scrambling to keep grant-funded firefighters on engines until they know if their positions will again be covered with grant money.
The then-City Council approved the purchase of the Pierce Arrow Engine in May 2014, albeit with some sharp questions about the expenditure.
Just this week SPFD Captains Jerry Byrum and Austin Macias as well as City Mechanic Jose Arreola traveled to Appleton, Wisconsin to the Pierce Manufacturing plant to inspect the engine and learn some of the basics of its operations.
The cost of the apparatus is about $530,000, an investment that Fire Chief Rick Araiza said was long overdue.
Even before the Santa Clara Waste Water explosion — the SPFD engine disabled by a still unknown substance that ignited the tires and caused the machine to be completely stripped for decontamination, a process not guaranteed — the city’s fleet was weak.
That engine, now sitting under a tarp while insurance issues are addressed, was purchased in 2006 and the newest of the department’s aging fire engines prone to expensive and time-consuming breakdowns.
To purchase the new Pierce Arrow engine Santa Paula Fire and Newport Beach Fire partnered to get optimum pricing for each department.
At the time the council approved the purchase two of the department’s four engines were out of service.
The new engine — which sports an American flag grill — will allow a fifth firefighter in the enclosed cab, has more than double the now existing storage space needed by the SPFD for the extra gear they must carry because of the many duties they cover, new pumping technology and other improvements over existing equipment.
In recent months the City of Ventura gave Santa Paula Fire an engine.
“Ventura City Fire got two new Pierces,” said Araiza and donated one that had been replaced to SPFD.
Araiza noted, “It has been a tremendous help for us,” and just one example of how fire agencies throughout Ventura County “band together” to help other departments, not only in times of mutual aid but whenever there is a need.
Founded in 1913, for more than 100 years Pierce fire engines have been considered the best manufactured known to be the longest-running and most reliable of firefighting apparatus.
