Manteca’s newest fire engine — a 2024 Pierce pumper costing $937,000 — responded to its first call on Tuesday from its new home at the Lathrop Road fire station.

It is the latest upgrade in a series of investments aimed at making sure emergency response is as effective as possible in Manteca.

In the coming year, thanks in a large part to passage of the Measure Q sales tax a year ago this month, Manteca will:

*take delivery of two new front-line fire engines.

*hire nine additional firefighters to create the city’s sixth “engine” company.

*be getting ready to break ground on its sixth fire station that will be located in southwest Manteca.

*replace breathing apparatus basically at the end of its useful life for all frontline personnel that includes tech advances such as GPS that allows command to keep track of the exact location of firefighters in conditions where they can barely see an inch or so in front of them.

Manteca’s new fire chief, Steve Islas, led a small ceremony attended by on and off duty firefighters, city personnel and council members Dave Breitenbucher and Charlie Halford to officially place Engine 244 into service.

Islas noted Manteca is “moving in the right direction” in adding nine firefighters as the city is just two years or so away from surpassing the 100,000-population mark.

The fire chief stressed securing and getting a new fire truck in place is a team effort from city administration and finance to elected leaders and firefighters.

That said, the dogged efforts of Deputy Chief of Operations Jeff Dennis can’t be overstated in making it possible to secure a fire engine nearly three years ahead of schedule and at a savings of roughly $300,000.

New engines ordered today cost $1.2 million and up.

Dennis, in his research, discovered there was an engine in production that had become available.

Working with Golden State Apparatus, he was able to secure a window of opportunity for the city to be able to act on the offer back in January.

And it was because of the just passed Measure Q that the council felt comfortable going ahead with the purchase using growth-related fees and some of the remaining federal COVID relief funds to purchase the engine.

The city had already ordered two engines that they will take delivery of in February.

They had been ordered years prior — the delivery time for fire engines is now approaching four years once an order is made — due to what had been a pressing need to replace aging fire engines that had started developing more and more mechanical issues.

Measure Q is on track to yield between $12 million and $14 million its first year. The three-quarter cent, 20-year tax went into effect on April 1.

Knowing that, the council was comfortable making the financial commitment to address pressing fire equipment needs just as they were in ordering more than 20 police vehicles to address serious needs as well.

The new Pierce engine will replace a frontline engine that has been in place since 2002. The engine it is replacing will now become a reserve engine enabling the city to eventually retire an even older engine.

The reserve engines are used when there is a call back of personnel in a major incident or when the frontline engine is in the shop for routine maintenance or if other problems develop.

In the past several years, there have been times when the majority of frontline engines were experiencing mechanical problems.

It hasn’t been uncommon for crews responding to an alarm to discover the frontline engine would not start and had to quickly switch to the reserve engine.

Two incidents in 2024 underscored the growing danger of the city not having a robust plan to replace frontline fire engines in a timely manner.

The first, was a fire engine “dying” in route to a medical emergency at El Rancho Mobile Home Park. A second engine from farther away had to respond.

The other was when the frontline engine at the Louise Avenue station wouldn’t start when a call came in. Firefighters then got hit with a double whammy when the reserve engine wouldn’t start either, requiring another station’s engine company to the call.

Those incidents re-enforce the best practices embraced by fire departments of having engines in front line serve for 10 years and then moving them into reserve or back-up service for 10 years.

Breitenbucher pleases

with department’s direction

Breitenbucher — the City Council’s “expert” when it comes to fire service given his 30 plus years with the Manteca Fire Department from which he retired as a fire captain several years before gaining election to the council — said he is pleased with the direction the department is going.

“The firefighters and department are doing a good job,” Breitenbucher said, noting they have helped the city secure a Class II insurance rating.

The only Class I agency in San Joaquin Council is the Stockton Fire Department, where Chief Islas served for 23 years before joining Manteca at the start of this month.

Higher ratings by the Insurance Standard Organization can play a role in keeping premiums down for insurance residential and commercial coverage.

Breitenbucher notes when he joined the Manteca Fire Department in 1986, there were two-man crews. The oldest engine in service then was built in 1947. He also responded to incidents in an open cab — in rain and fog — in a 1958 engine.

The councilman praised voters for passage of Measure Q that is helping the department to stay on top of its game to effectively serve the community.

He also appreciates the Ed and Delores Cardoza trust for gifting land on North Main Street for eventual replacement of the Louise Avenue station.

Not only does the station built in the 1980s have age-related issues, but it can’t accommodate all the needed modern firefighting equipment plus it was designed with living quarters for two firefighters and not three.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com