FIRE DEPARTMENT STATS
Someone who knows about these things has pointed out that a few weeks ago when I mentioned about the short-staffing at the Turlock Fire Department I didn't quite have all the facts right. I had taken my information from the fire department's website, which states that "The four fire stations operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a combined staffing of 11 personnel on duty." In fact, my firefighter friend says, the figure is often closer to eight people on duty in the stations. At any given time the other three are either supervisors or are on vacation. So, we've got eight on-duty frontline firefighters to cover a city of 70,000 people.

We do have a handful of faithful reserves. And according to the city website we're recruiting, but as in the rest of the country there is a declining interest in volunteer fire service.