Interim fire chief presents strategic and master plan, highlights staffing needs and reliance on Measure E and automatic aid

Kingsburg — Interim Fire Chief John Banaski presented a Strategic and Master Plan to the City Council on Jan. 15, summarizing the department’s current capabilities, call trends and recommended actions for the next 3–10 years. Council received the plan as an informational item; no formal adoption was required.

Banaski said the city’s ambulance and engine units are heavily dependent on automatic aid from neighboring agencies and additional staffing provided by Measure E and a contract with Kingsburg Health Care District. He described the department’s current authorized staffing—20 FTEs overall with a daily suppression staffing model that typically fields a two‑person medic engine, a two‑person ambulance and an administrative complement—and noted frequent overtime to backfill vacancies.

The plan uses NFPA 1710 critical task analysis as a benchmark and explained that modern single‑family structure fire responses typically require more personnel than Kingsburg routinely has available; Banaski said NFPA’s task analysis recommends up to 16 personnel for a typical single‑family dwelling fire, while automatic aid agreements and dispatch practices commonly yield about 11 responders on scene in Kingsburg’s area. Banaski said the department is evaluating ways to reduce risk through prevention, sprinklers, earlier detection and improved resource reliability.

Banaski summarized outreach and planning work including a town‑hall style stakeholder session with 17 community groups, internal stakeholder interviews, and a review of response time maps. He said the department’s 90th‑percentile total response time is near 7 minutes 28 seconds and that call volume is growing (engines and ambulances have seen a multi‑year increase toward 2,000–3,000 incidents annually across city and areas served).

Key findings and recommendations included pursuing improved automatic‑aid reliability (including staffing agreements for neighboring engines), monitoring recruitment and retention, updating fleet replacement funding for engines and ambulances, completing the state‑mandated inspections for certain occupancies and increasing public education. He also noted capital pressures: apparatus and ambulance replacement costs have risen substantially and one new ambulance is on order for delivery in mid‑2026.

Banaski stressed reliance on Measure E funding: "measure e pays for 5 employees of the fire department…" and said that without Measure E those positions would not be funded, reducing on‑duty staffing materially. He also described the department’s performance on ambulance unit availability and how adding a second ambulance reduced unit out‑of‑service percentages.

Council members thanked Banaski for the plan and praised interim leadership. The presentation provided the council with a multi‑year roadmap for prioritized investments and staffing planning; next steps will include staff review of specific budget implications and potential council consideration of funding or operational agreements.