Dave Marques Tuesday officially becomes the 12th fire chief since 1958 when the City of Manteca first switched from a volunteer to full-time fire department.

And while a lot has changed since then Marques will tell you that the department’s strength is owed to the dedicated frontline firefighters who are committed to serving the Manteca community.

“We’re a success because of our firefighters,” Marques said.

Marques noted during the past year every firefighter has embraced and reaffirmed the values that have guided the department for the past decade — professionalism, respect, integrity, dedication and excellence.

The department which is on pace to surpass 10,000 calls this year has 45 frontline firefighters, three battalion chiefs, four fire prevention personnel, an administrative assistant, as well as Marques.

Of those 45 firefighters, 18 are funded from the 2006 voter approved public safety’s half cent sales tax.

The 54-member department operates on a $16 million budget serving the community from five fire stations. The latest station opened in 2020 at Woodward Avenue and Atherton Drive in southeast Manteca.

The department is able to respond to emergency calls more than 95 percent of the time within five minutes. That’s considered the window emergency personnel need to arrive on scene in order for the most optimum outcomes to be obtained whether it is a medical emergency or fire.

That is one of the big reasons why Manteca enjoys a “2”rating on a scale of 1 to 10 with “1” being the best from the Insurance Services Office that has a direct impact on insurance firms’ premium charges.

A Rohnert Park native, a career in the fire service wasn’t even on Marques’ radar after high school as he was studying to be a teacher.

But then he met some firefighters in Sacramento who convinced him he should take a fire science class. He did and he got hooked.

After earning a degree in fire science from American River College he was hired in 1991 as a volunteer with the South Placer Fire Department that serves the Granite Bay area east of Roseville. Marques was hired on as a full-time paramedic in 1995.

“I like it because there is something different every day,” Marques said of firefighting. “You also get to see the results of everything you do. There are not very many jobs like that.”

Marques took a job as a firefighter in Manteca in 1999.

“I’d never been to Manteca before and I fell in love with the community,” Marques said.

Marques arrived in Manteca just as the department was on the tail end of transitioning from two-man engines to three-man crews.

In 1999 Marques got hired by the Santa Clara Fire Department. He came to the conclusion that the community and department wasn’t the right fit for him and was hired back by Manteca in 2000.

He was promoted to engineer shortly after returning to Manteca and became a captain in 2005. Marques was elevated to battalion chief in 2011. He became interim fire chief in January of this year. Marques since March of 2020 was the person running the city’s emergency operations command center overseeing municipal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and prepared for planned public safety power outages.

Marques noted in the near future the department will open up the application process for reserve firefighters. The reserve force now numbers five due to attrition during the pandemic.

There are also volunteer positions open to assist the department through Seniors Assisting Fire Effort (SAFE), Police Explorers, and the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).

The department is in the process of acquiring a new ladder truck for $1.5 million the city expects to take delivery of in two years.

The current truck with a 100-foot ladder and aerial platform that allows directing streams of water on fires from above was delivered to Manteca in 2010. It is now often out of service due to mechanical failures and unable to respond to calls.

When Manteca takes delivery of the new ladder truck, the current truck will be placed into backup service. That will allow for a replacement truck when the new truck needs to be serviced or for a second ladder truck to respond to a major incident involving large structures such as distribution centers or the 500-room Great Wolf indoor water park report.

Based on growth, Marques expects there will be a need to start the planning process in five years or so for a sixth fire station.

Before that it is likely the city will add a sixth company.

That’s due to several factors.

The Union Road station was not only designed to house two companies — one for a truck/ladder crew and one for a standard engine crew — but is was located to serve future growth south of the 120 Bypass.

The Union Road station is now the busiest of the five stations in Manteca having already surpassed 2,000 calls this year. At the same time ground has broken on three new housing developments that will add almost 2,000 homes south of Woodward Avenue in the coming years.

That will give the city the luxury of providing adequate coverage for growth without having to add another station that, based on the cost of station five, would require an expenditure of more than $5 million.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com