Two fire engines rolled away from south Stockton for the final time Monday morning, leaving on a 1,100-mile journey to the coastal city of Empalme, Mexico, on the Gulf of California."From Sonora Street to the state of Sonora," Stockton resident Rosalinda Galaviz, a member of the traveling party, said as she stood outside Station No.
The 1990s-era engines reached the end of their usefulness to Stockton a few years ago. Though they might have been worth $5,000 apiece in scrap metal, the city opted instead to donate the engines to 70,000-resident Empalme, one of Stockton's seven Sister Cities.
The engines "will be of high importance ... because they will reinforce the existing equipment of the city's fire department and the rural area," Ruben Aguirre, president of Empalme's Sister Cities association, wrote in an email.
The engines headed off for their new homeland after being sprinkled with holy water by Bishop Stephen Blaire. Behind one of the wheels was Tracy firefighter Clarence Marquez, a lifelong Stockton resident. Roger Gray, a retired Stockton firefighter who had not driven a fire engine since 2002, was behind the other wheel.