A vacant fire station in the Central California city of Ripon was filled with people Wednesday evening who were concerned about their fire district's personnel being understaffed.
For the Ripon Consolidated Fire District, it's quite simple: Their district is understaffed, and one of their buildings is empty daily because they need money. The district also needs a new fire truck. In the meantime, they are trying to find ways to respond to 911 calls quickly.
The district covers 56 square miles with a town of almost 20,000 people. Yet, because they're not a city fire department, but a special independent district, they have just one fire engine with two firefighters on shift at all times.
With just two firemen on duty, they can't enter a structure fire legally before waiting for other fire departments to help.
For cardiac arrests, the American Heart Association recommends at least four to six personnel to respond. The Ripon fire district has just five personnel total on duty every day, at any given time.
"Everybody that we talk to, they all agree that it is a problem," Chief Erid DeHart said. "They are not happy with the fact that we are starting to run more calls than we can handle. We're seeing on a pretty regular basis, two and three and sometimes four calls that come in a short amount of time, and it inundates the available resources that we have."
The community encouraged DeHart and his staff to get a consultant in order to get a look at the financial picture and see what options may be available that would be best for residents, along with the fire district.
"We're basically living on 1985 wages. That's when the last tax was passed, and if you think about it today, if you think about it in your own household, what did items cost in 1985, and what do things cost now?" DeHart said. "So if you were trying to buy items now off of your 1985 wages, there's no way you can do it. The cost of living has gone up easily over 300% from 1985 until now. So we're just asking the voters to consider that and weigh all those facts out as they decide where they are in this matter."
DeHart said they hope to get an assessment that the community can support, recognizing that "nobody likes new taxes."
"I totally understand that," he said. "But, for a fire district, this is the only way we can raise funds. There's no other means that's within our power that we can generate revenue."
If they did receive the funds, the vacant fire station — one of three stations they have — could be fully staffed to help this crew, which is ranked fifth-lowest in San Joaquin County for property tax allocation.
"Our job is to respond to emergencies," DeHart said. "Our job is to save lives and protect property, and it's very frustrating when multiple calls are coming in at the same time and we can't handle those calls. It's frustrating to listen and hear on the radio that an ambulance coming from another community is delayed, knowing that you have a citizen here within our community that is truly needing medical assistance and it just can't get there fast enough."
Jeanne Loftis, a Ripon resident who is on the fire committee, said her son-in-law recently had a heart attack. Thankfully, first responders got to him in time with enough staff to care for her family efficiently and with great care.
"But, if there would've been another call at the same time, either that other call would have had to wait or my son-in-law would have had to wait," Loftis said. "And if my son-in-law would have had to wait, he wouldn't be here today. It's personal to me, at this point. Before, it was interest, it was concern for my community. Now, it's personal."
In the meantime, these crews are doing the best they can, with the resources they have. DeHart said Wednesday that they had a call from someone having chest pain. His guys were already on a call, so nearby Manteca fire personnel were stuck in traffic. What could've been a few minutes turned into 10-15 minutes.
DeHart hopes to have something on the ballot next year as they await advice from the consultant on how to best move forward to receive funding.
Loftis appreciates the firefighters for the work they do and would like to see them paid better because they've seen a lot of good ones leave for more money and less stress. In the meantime, DeHart said they are "blessed" to have the firefighters on staff.
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