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Fighting Fires for Free : Volunteers: On a staff of 140, only 6 are paid. But most hope their training will put them in line for full-time firefighter jobs.

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Volunteer Fire Department of La Habra Heights occupies a one-story former school, so no pole is needed for firefighters to slide down. The last Dalmatian departed, with its owner, five years ago.

“You usually picture a fire station as an old, block building on a street corner,” said Capt. Richard Beckman, 28, sitting in the firehouse lunchroom, which used to be his first-grade classroom when it was part of Hacienda School.

What also makes the department different is that it is predominantly volunteer. Only six of 140 members are paid, and most of the volunteers drive long distances from various parts of Southern California to work a 24-hour shift for free on a day off from their full-time jobs.

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For 50 years the fire company has served La Habra Heights. With 6,364 residents and hillside houses assessed at a total of $490 million, the city has had few major fires in the past decade. Of the 600 calls the department responded to last year, more than half were for traffic accidents. The last big fire, which destroyed the education building of the La Habra Christian Church on Bella Vista Drive, was in February.

“One of the concerns here is that we have very expensive homes that are secluded and difficult to get to, and they are plugged into hills, with brush all around,” said Beckman, who works one 24-hour shift a week as day captain at the station. He also is senior drillmaster with the Rio Hondo College Fire Academy.

“But we have two things going for us,” he went on. “We have a very strong fire prevention program, and we have a very supportive public. The citizens are very fire-conscious.”

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Mike Scruggs, the fire marshal for 12 years, walked in after checking on weeds and roadside shrubbery. Scruggs, Beckman said, is responsible for an 80% decrease in wild-land fires in La Habra Heights.

“That’s because our weed abatement program is so strong,” said Scruggs, who spends his days with a four-member crew checking for fire hazards and inspecting oil wells and sprinkler systems. “We’ve had people come here from other cities to find out what we’re doing, because in our limited budget (less than $600,000 a year) we get so much done.”

Under the weed abatement program, residents have 10 days to clear weeds or they are fined $80. Ordinances require sprinklers in any house addition, and prohibit shake roofs.

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“A fire will move very quickly up a hill and explode at the top,” Scruggs said, “so we have to make sure there is no brush within 200 feet of a home.

The company’s fleet of vehicles includes four fire engines, one a nostalgic red 1962 American LeFrance model, with axes, silver ladders, shiny chrome and an old-fashioned bell. It’s out of service but probably will be rolled out Oct. 17 for the department’s 50th anniversary celebration. A parade will be led by Art Sucksdorf, the first chief. Sucksdorf, who is 92 and lives in Stanton, sounded enthusiastic on the phone: “I’m figurin’ I’ll be up there for that.”

Then he talked about 1942, when the area was mostly ranches: “We had a truck with a tank on it to spray orange trees. They called me the chief and we each had our own house and truck. We’d jump in the truck, turn the hose on and knock down the fire. We didn’t have any station.”

From such modest beginnings, the department, which is on North Hacienda Boulevard, has grown to where it has more than 130 volunteers, the most of any of the 38 fire departments in Los Angeles County, according to La Habra Heights Chief Gregory Garcia. It also has become a breeding ground for well-trained firefighters.

“We estimate that 96% of our people go off to be paid firefighters in other departments,” Garcia said.

The faces change daily at the station, with at least 12 people always on duty. Only a handful get paid--Beckman, who is one of several day captains; Garcia; Scruggs; Meg Collins, the administrative assistant; and a secretary and training/safety captain. The latter two positions are vacant.

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Only about 30 of the firefighters--called resident volunteers--live in La Habra Heights. They respond to calls from their homes, although some take regular stints at the firehouse. Beckman started as a volunteer when he was 16.

“It was the kind of thing you just did,” he said. “When you were born here it was accepted that later on you’d get on with the Fire Department. I’m still seeing kids come on at 18 (now the minimum age), and they are longtime residents of the Heights.”

Most of the firefighters are in their 20s. The non-resident volunteers, who live outside the city, work a 24-hour shift each week on their day off from other jobs. Most of them hope to be hired as full-time firefighters in municipal departments, which pay between $2,500 and $3,200 a month to start.

Rainier Perez, for example, is a telephone company technician from Alta Loma; Steve Shelp, of Venice, is a carpenter; Robert LaDolce, of Calabasas, has an aircraft maintenance shop; Humberto Carillo, of Monterey Park, is a mover; Steve Dorsey, of La Habra, is a cook, and Cindy Hall, of Torrance, one of four women in the department, paints houses.

“I’m used to hard work,” Hall said, after going on a call to aid a woman who had fallen off a horse. “This just gives it a strong purpose.”

While waiting for fire and rescue calls, the volunteers go through training drills. About midmorning, a big discussion ensues as to what they will eat for lunch. The suggestions to the day’s designated cook fly freely: “Tuna fish”. . . “non-fat dressing”. . . “ real cheese.”

During their long shifts, the firehouse residents----while resting on mattresses in the sleeping room, reading “911” and “Fire Chief” magazines in the day room, or doing the dishes in the kitchen--think about fighting fires even bigger than the church fire in February.

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“You train and you drill for so many hours, and you’re always waiting for that one big fire,” said Ron Alvarez, 23, a paramedic for an ambulance company. “Just last week we had a pretty interesting one. About 1 o’clock at night, when we were sleeping, we got called to a brush fire. When we showed up, it was up a hill, right smack in someone’s front yard and it was going up toward their home. As soon as we arrived the flames were 50 feet in the air. We attacked it from both sides and kind of sandwiched it, and got it out in five minutes.”

Alvarez has muscular arms, like most of the firefighters on a recent Monday shift. After 5 in the afternoon they play basketball in back of the station, then run and lift weights.

“We try to keep in shape,” Alvarez said. “People don’t realize how strenuous (fighting) a fire really is. You’re in your thick coat, your helmet and pants and you really break a sweat. Lifting ladders is pretty difficult, and the hose is really heavy when you try to drag it around. It takes a lot of endurance to keep going.”

Alvarez has been trying for the past 3 1/2 years to get a full-time firefighting job. “With the state budget cuts,” he said, “a lot of the cities don’t have enough money to hire more firefighters.”

Elmer Ackley, a big, friendly faced man of 50, dropped in the station to help out as usual. A resident volunteer for the past three years and a firefighter most of his life, Ackley is what Beckman calls the “personification of a true volunteer.”

“Elmer is one of our most enthusiastic, committed volunteer firefighters,” Beckman said. “He brings us a lot of maturity and experience from volunteer fire departments back East that have been around for 200 years. For him to come from that area is a big thing for us.”

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Ackley, who is studying at Fullerton College to be an arson investigator, laughed when asked about his experience in sliding down firehouse poles.

“I remember one night in Pennsylvania we had a big fire and it was like, oh, really cold, and there was snow and icicles up your leg. I said, ‘What’s this, slide down the pole?’ I ran down the steps and got on the engine.”

Beckman also laughed at that story. “I don’t think we’ll have any poles here, so Elmer’s safe,” he said.

Out on the basketball court, Grant Hubbell, 23, washed the long hoses. Using a pulley system, he then hoisted them up to Steve Dorsey, who stood atop a 35-foot tower. Dorsey hung them to dry, then let the hoses that were already dry drop to the ground before coming down to help Hubbell roll them up.

“Once we get them rolled, we stick them in our storage shed,” said Hubbell, a paramedic. “We always rotate the hoses. If a hose sits on the fire engine too long, if it’s folded in one place for an extended period, the rubber inside will crack.”

Hubbell and Dorsey enjoy the firehouse routines. “It’s kind of like a big family, a fraternity,” Hubbell said. “There’s pranks that lighten up the atmosphere. Anything involving water. Getting people to pose for pictures and then dousing them. Or surprises in your boots, like whipping cream. Black shoe polish in the helmet is pretty famous.”

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Dorsey said he always wanted to be a firefighter but did not realize how much until he joined the company. “The training’s good,” he said. “You always think you want to do something, but when you learn about it more, you know it’s what you want to do.”

The firefighters are watched closely by the children at a day-care center next door. The toddlers press their faces against a chain-link fence and stare fascinated at the young men and women in crisp blue shirts and dark pants.

“It’s something they haven’t seen before,” Hubbell said. “I think they’re a little young to think that we’re heroes. When they’re old enough to realize what we do, I’m sure some will look at us that way.”

There was no need to ask how Hubbell looked at firefighters when he was growing up.

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