"It's real rough on equipment. This country is real rough country. A lot of cattle trails, canyons, washouts. You can't see, you're in the smoke, you hit them. So there's a lot of abuse on the trucks," said Sun City Fire Chief, Mark Long.

Fighting wildfire for days in that rough country means plugged injectors, broken rod bearings, and trucks that won't run. Every one of the county's nine volunteer departments have damaged equipment.

"I have no idea what this is going to cost but this is going to be expensive," Long said.

But an even bigger problem?

All of the town's attack fire trucks are currently broken down.

With some of the wildfire not contained, and winds picking up again, all crews are on the look out for flare ups. Sun City got a call Monday that turned out to just be a dust cloud, but the chief had to drive to the next town and borrow a truck before he could check it out. "It's real frustrating when you're getting calls and you don't have a way to get there," he said.

"Giving them the hands-on aspect and their own firetruck to train on will help prepare them to get a job and when these chiefs hire them for their departments and go to serve the community, they're ready to hit the ground running," said STC Fire Science Department Head Tony Faust.

Faust says the program is comprised of high schoolers, military members and more.

The new engine holds 1,000 gallons of water and can pump up to 1,500 gallons a minute, Ekkelkamp said.

The engine cost the district about $400,000. It is the first fire vehicle the district has purchased in about a decade, Ekkelkamp said.

The district will celebrate 75 years of service next year.

The district, which Madlung said has an annual budget of about $500,000 between its two stations, saved up to purchase the new engine.

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.