Salinas looks to boost fire department

At five o’clock on a Friday evening, at the busiest fire station in Salinas, all nine firefighters from station one are out responding to calls.

“I think we are at about number 15 for the day,” battalion chief Chris Vaughn said.

Some firefighters have been at work for four days straight.

“We do have two firefighters that are going to time out at 96 hours tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock,” Vaughn said.

Salinas fire has been trying to recover since the recession, where it was left with 59 firefighters to cover more than 140,000 people.

“We were in a very, very drastic overtime situation,” deputy chief Brett Loomis said. “We had a number of firefighters who were injured.”

FEMA’s “SAFER” grant would allow the department to add six positions and a paramedic’s squad to meet the growing needs of the city.

“That’s going to add two more people on duty every day, and (there’s) going to be a rapid response vehicle that’s going to be able to get to calls and help support firefighters on the engines and the ladder trucks,” Loomis said.

The department also said it wants to focus on hiring locals to keep up their numbers.

“We will have them stay here, not have to invest in a lot of efforts in keep training people and turn this in to a training ground if you will,” Loomis said.

This is not the first time the department has applied for the “SAFER” grant, and it expects to hear about this one before the next fiscal year starts in October.