With former volunteer firefighters as guests of honor, Pleasanton fire and city officials unveiled the community's newest fire station during dedication ceremonies on November 15.

Scheduled to open by mid-December, the $2.7 million Fire Station #2 at 6300 Stoneridge Mall Road is unlike any of Pleasanton's three other fire stations.

The new two-story facility is built around two training rooms where firefighters and private citizens can learn about fire fighting methods through the use of the latest audio-visual equipment. The training rooms also are equipped to serve as an alternate city emergency shelter should a disaster force City Hall to be abandoned.

Modern kitchen facilities, individual cubicles for the 21 men who will be stationed there, a weight room and an area to maintain the department's breathing apparatus are included in the more than 12,000 square foot fire station.

Paid for by the North Pleasanton Assessment District, the fire station also includes a flame-retardant roof, automatic sprinklers and an on-site fire hydrant.

And reaching from floor to ceiling are three shiny brass poles, possibly the only traditional fixture in the modern Fire Station #2.

"When we had it built, we were thinking 50 years from now," said Battalion Chief Ed Boddington. The roomy facility will be necessary, he said, to accommodate additional firefighters as the number of Valley homes increases.

The Stoneridge Mall Road station, which will serve North Pleasanton, replaces the existing Fire Station #2, a three-bedroom house on Desertwood Lane. Boddington said Fire Station #2 will most likely be converted to a home again.

More than a year in the works, the new fire station design was the result of studies conducted by a committee of Fire Department personnel. Along with Ed Boddington, the group included Capt. Bill Halvorsen, Capt. Cornell Holmes, Lt. Joel Pernus, Lt. Sean Chapman, Lt. Mike St. John and firefighter Galen Wentz.

As the public was invited to tour the new Fire Station #2, many former volunteer firefighters spent the time recalling old flames and past adventures.

"Those were the days," recalled Elwood ''Herb" Stahlnecker, a 24-year volunteer firefighter. "There was a comraderie among the volunteers. We trusted each other."

His friend, Bob Juniper, a volunteer firefighter during the late 1940s, remembered volunteer days in much the same light.

"We had a saying about a two-story grass fire," he laughed. "I don't know why we referred to them that way but on a summer night, we sometimes went out eight times during a shift."

Ironically, the two remember driving a makeshift fire truck through the field on which the present-day Fire Station #2 stands.

"We had one truck and five men to put out a 500 acre grass fire," said Stalnecker. "It was a lot of hard work but we had some good times too."

Pleasanton's all-volunteer Fire Department was established in 1888. In 1965, the department hired its first paid full-time firefighter. Today, the department has 48 paid personnel, a clerk/typist and 12 volunteers.

To see a reproduction of the original article and edition of Pleasanton Pathways, visit: November 25, 1985 Pathways.