During the 1930s, the Fire Department Motor Repair Shop took on the job of modernizing and rebuilding older fire apparatus. The first three rebuilds made their debut in 1931 when a 1913 Seagrave 75‑foot aerial ladder truck, a 1913 Seagrave city service ladder truck, and a 1916 Seagrave high pressure hose wagon were rolled out of the shop bearing the appearance of 1930 vehicles. Two American La France 1000 GPM pumpers arrived in 1931 and 1932, the latter being the first Seattle apparatus to be equipped with the V‑12 gasoline engine. There would be no new apparatus deliveries for over five years.

The City began to feel the pinch of the economy by 1932, and on July 11th of that year the 6th Battalion was closed. The 4th Battalion once again covered the entire north end from Station No. 11. Just over a month later, August 22nd, Engine No. 3, Hose Company No. 31, and Squad Company No. 2 "got the axe."

However, the big blow came on April 4, 1933, when "Depression" Mayor John F. Dore, in an "economy move", closed eleven companies and laid off two hundred seventy fire fighters. The disbanded companies were: Engine 4, Engine 8, Engine 19, Engine 23, Hose 30, Hose 34, Engine 35, Engine 37, Engine 38, Truck 2 and Squad 1.

Robert Laing was now back at his old post of Fire Marshal. His replacement as Chief on June 6, 1932, was Claude W. Corning. A move was underway by Local 27 to reinstate the fire fighters that had been laid off and reestablish the closed companies. Partial victory was achieved when a court action dictated that seven of the companies be put back into service. One hundred eighty-six of the fire fighters were rehired, and in January of 1934 Engines 8, 19, 35, 3 7, 38, and Hose Companies 30 and 34 were once again in the Seattle Fire Department. Hose 30 could celebrate this success only one year, for on January 1, 1935, Station 30 was closed, not to reopen until World War 11.

Engine 39, the Lake Union fireboat, was the Depression's final victim, September 25,1935. But the old "Snoqualmie" would not be retired before fighting one last major blaze. On the afternoon of April 30, 1935, a cigarette carelessly discarded from an auto passing over the Fairview Avenue Trestle ignited grass, brush, and debrisunder and alongside the frame structure. The trestle passed over a marshy area at the southeast comer of Lake Union. Immediately adjacent to the trestle's landward side were two buildings; the large Lake Union Steam Generating Plant of Seattle City Light (the City‑owned electric utility) at 1200 Fairview Avenue, and to the south at 1165 Eastlake Avenue the Washington Laundry & Dry Cleaning Plant. When fire fighters arrived in response to the 4:03 p.m. alarm, fire had consumed a small shed and had extended into the dry cleaning plant. Fire raced through the brush beneath the trestle and ignited creosote covering on the fuel oil delivery pipes, which extended from a fuel pier on the lake under the trestle and into the Steam plant. Flames from the burning trestle licked the plant's side breaking hundreds of glass window panes and eventually entering the plant itself. Two City Light employees who had gone to the roof to cut wires damaged by the on‑coming fire became trapped. Truck Co. 4's aerial was backed onto the burning trestle with fire fighters on two hose lines protecting each side. Once alongside the steam plant, the aerial ladder was raised and 2nd Battalion Chief William Fitzgerald rode it to the roof. He guided the trapped men to the ladder and, once they were down, the truck and crews retreated. When the "Snoqualmie" arrived, her deck monitors made short work of the fires in the brush and trestle. The 2‑11 alarm was at 4:07 p.m. followed by a 3‑11 at 4: 10 p.m. The f ire was not "tapped out" until 5:12 p.m., leaving the Tuesday afternoon rush hour traffic heavily snarled.

The Motor Repair Shop turned out the first of its four rebuilt older American La France 1000 GPM pumpers, in 1936. The 1918 model was assigned to Engine 7 after having been repowered with a new Hall‑Scott gasoline engine. The radiator, hood, and firewall had all been replaced with like parts obtained from the Kenworth Motor Truck plant on lower Queen Anne Hill. The rig had also received a new windshield and was converted from right‑hand to left‑hand drive. Three more American La France 1000 GPM pumpers were rebuilt likewise. Engine 36's 1920 model was virtually demolished in an accident on November 1, 1937. It became the second pumper to receive the new "face‑lift." The 1917 model, which had been assigned to Engine 36 while the first‑line apparatus was being rebuilt, was next to receive the treatment, going back into service with Engine I at Headquarters in 1939. The last rebuild, a 1920 model, went to Engine 10 in 1942.

By July of 1937, Engine I had been alone for four years in the large, old, drafty station at 7th Avenue and Columbia Street, the first permanent headquarters station after the Great Fire. That month the old station was closed and Engine I was moved in with Engine 10 at the present headquarters station at 2nd Avenue South and Main Street.The first new apparatus since 1932 were ordered from the Seagrave Company. In August 1937, Seattle's first aerial truck equipped with a 100‑foot, all‑metal aerial ladder arrived. It was a tractor‑trailer job with an open tiller seat but an enclosed‑cab tractor. It went into service with Truck I at Station 10 on October 5. The pumper, first in the Department with a 1250 GPM capacity pump, went into service a year later at Engine 25. If also had an enclosed cab, but with the addition of crew seats in the cab behind the driver and officer. They were entered from the tailboard on a little walkway between the hose beds.