Rebuilding of city's fire department the effort of committed volunteers

A few of the volunteer members of the Pleasanton Fire Department include from left, Lt. Renea Marshall, Capt. Josh Marshall, Fire Chief Jeff Wisdom, and firefighter Andy Bertram. (Photos by Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

By Roger Sims, Journal staff

linncountyjournal@icloud.com

PLEASANTON – As early as August, Pleasanton city Fire Chief Jeff Wisdom was confident that, when the Insurance Services Office (ISO) inspector visited his department for the first time since a year ago, its status would be upgraded.

On Monday, Sept. 28, he presented a copy of the letter he received from an official at Verisk telling him that the station was in good standing and that another inspection planned for December wouldn’t be necessary.

“I am happy to share some good news,” wrote Danielle LaSassa, community mitigation analyst for the company. “After coordinating with the field representative and reviewing all documentation submitted, your community was able to improve from PPC 10 to PPC 07/7X.

“The field representative has completed the necessary updates, and the retrogression process has officially concluded.”

A PPC rating of 10 is the lowest rating and it would mean that the department has several deficiencies that would need to be addressed. The Linn County Rural Fire Department rating earlier this year slipped from an ISO rating of 5 to a 6 in areas within a 5-minute radius of each of the rural fire stations. Outside of that radius, the ISO rating remains a 10.

An ISO rating of 1 is reserved for fire departments that are manned around the clock, typically departments located in metropolitan areas. Wisdom said it was likely that the single fire truck Pleasanton station would be able to score much higher, but that wouldn’t stop the department from trying.

Several members of the city fire department were among the more than two dozen first responders and Armed Services members and veterans honored before the Pleasanton High School home football game on Sept. 11, the 26th anniversary of the attack on the Pentagon and Twin Towers.

One of the criticisms of the county department by the inspector was lack of training of firefighters.

That is a lesson that Wisdom has been acutely aware of, and he developed a comprehensive training schedule for the firefighters.

The other crucial aspect of a successful fire department that Wisdom has addressed is the ability of the whole department to be committed to the task they have had before them over the past year.

In doing so he has given praise to his men and women, handed out awards for service to non-firefighters that have helped with administrative work and other tasks, and requested that one of the volunteer firefighters be promoted to lieutenant.

In May 2025 in a town hall meeting at the Pleasanton Community Center, the council on a split 4-1 vote gave what they saw as a failing city fire department a year to resurrect itself. The late Angie Randall, a council member at that time, was the driving force to abandon the city fire department and rely on the county’s rural fire department, which has a station in Pleasanton.

Following the appointment by Mayor Mathew Young of a public works employee to replace Rob Dent, longtime fire chief, several weeks of turbulence followed as the city tried to recruit new firefighters. But the council pushed back when it was apparent that the new fire chief didn’t have the experience to lead the department, and that nothing had been done to prepare the department for a pending ISO inspection.

Wisdom, who has several years of experience and is concurrently a captain on the county’s rural fire department, was installed as fire chief at the council’s insistence. He immediately went to work on the task of recruiting new firefighters, setting up training, and working to replace outdated and potentially dangerous bunker gear and self-contained breathing apparatus equipment.

Last May, the mayor noted that it was the one-year anniversary of the council’s decision to give the department a year to correct deficiencies, but the consensus of the council was to give the department more time to prepare for the ISO follow-up inspection slated for mid-September.

By mid-August, Wisdom said that there were only two relatively minor items to cross off the checklist for the station to be ready for the ISO inspection slated for mid-September.

Pleasanton city fire department volunteers include Assistant Chief Dennis Mitchell, Captain Jake Mattingly, Captain Josh Marshall, Lieutenant Renea Marshall, and firefighters Andy Bertram, Mike Coen, Ian Goucher, Tyler Swarnes, and Ron Miller.