FIRED UP FOR CHRISTMAS Inside the East Contra Costa Fire District
	DECEMBER 2004

by Doug Dawson

The best part of the job of firefighter is the gratitude we see in the eyes of people after we’ve saved their homes, belongings, or in some cases, their very lives.

It feels wonderful to be able to reach into somebody’s life and to make an intervention at a level like that!

Some of us in the fire service get that same wonderful feeling on another level during the holidays through the gifts and food distribution projects that we carry out. We’ve got the holiday spirit at the East Contra Costa Fire District and take great satisfaction in spreading Christmas cheer to some families in our area.

We’re part of the community and many of us feel that giving back to the community where we live and work in ways like this is as important as the service we provide during emergencies.

Helping Santa do His Job
One tradition of the fire department in Oakley is to distribute sacks of goodies to the residents in various local neighborhoods. Last year, due to the growth of Oakley and other demands upon the time of the firefighters, we missed the delivery.

We discovered that people had been looking forward to the firefighters coming through with their sacks of candy and oranges, and were really disappointed when it failed to happen. So the Oakley firefighters decided to resume that program. They couldn’t let those expectant families be disappointed two years in a row!

We collect toys and gifts at several fire stations throughout the district. In cooperation with the Community Chest, we identify needy families and assemble gift bags for them.

Kate Bottom, from our Brentwood headquarters, coordinates the outreach programs. Jackie Carver has been running the Bethel Island “Santa Sack” project for a long time. Kate said she started fifteen years ago with one pickup truck and two volunteers. Today they have a half-dozen volunteers, four pickup trucks, and two trailers to deliver all the food and toys to the kids.

The majority of the underprivileged children on Bethel Island live in a community called Lundborg Landing. When the Santa Sack trucks pull up each year, the little kids come pouring out of their mobile homes and RVs, sometimes in their bare feet, laughing and rejoicing to see Santa Claus, himself, who has come into their neighborhood — riding on a fire engine, of course — handing out gifts to one and all.

Kate said that seeing those joyful faces and hearing the children’s shouts of laughter always provides one of the great moments of the entire year for her.

Kate and some of our firefighters carry their gifts of toys and food into some really heart-wrenching situations. The gifts they bring are going to make the difference between Christmas and no Christmas for some of those children.

Kate said that we bring light into some really dark areas. She takes her children and her sisters along in the delivery so they can see what it is like to be really needy and can participate in helping make things better for at least one day in lives that are very difficult for most of the year.

Kate said that she particularly recalls one beautiful little girl who was living on a boat and remembers how she came dashing off her dock with her blond curls bobbing in the wind. She was so excited to get her sack of toys that she could hardly contain her delight.

Nothing puts us in the Christmas spirit better than that kind of experience. Kate said that she is sometimes moved to tears by the opportunity of making that kind of a difference in a child’s life.

A Life of Service
I began my career as a volunteer firefighter in Dublin and six months later I became a fulltime member of the department. I subsequently joined the Los Altos Fire Department, where I served for 22 years. I climbed the ladder progressing through the ranks from Firefighter, to Lieutenant, to Captain, then Battalion Chief, and was finally appointed Fire Chief in 1989.

I served for seven years as Chief of the Visalia Fire Department and then decided to retire. My retirement lasted a mere nine months, which I spent golfing and working on my wife’s honey do list. My retirement ended when Kings County called me to come as an interim fire chief. I went there on what was supposed to be a six months assignment and remained on the job for five years.

I discovered that I wasn’t ready to retire. The fact is, I get a lot of pleasure from my job. I enjoy being part of the fire service and really appreciate the people I associate with. I made up my mind that I would continue to do this as long as the work remained satisfying and challenging.

In 2003 the opportunity presented itself for me to take the position of Fire Chief with the East Contra Costa Fire District and I jumped at it. One of the reasons we were so glad to make the move was that both my wife and I grew up in the Bay Area. Our families are here, so we were happy to have the chance to come back.

It has been great returning to the Bay Area, and to East County in particular. We love Brentwood! We’ve enjoyed meeting the other people in the fire district, as well as the community leaders from the other towns in the area.

The people in this district are very fortunate. Every one of our fire stations is staffed by very skilled firefighters and each station is very well equipped to handle emergencies. They are highly trained and skilled in the use of such emergency equipment as the Jaws of Life.

Prepared for East County Calls for Service
The East Contra Costa Fire District is a relatively new department that was formed a couple of years ago by the merger of the Oakley-Knightsen, the East Diablo, and the Bethel Island Fire Protection Districts.

Our combination district currently includes about 55 career and 45 volunteer firefighters. Our volunteers are, in fact, semi-professionals. We refer to them as POC (Paid On Call) personnel because they receive an hourly rate for every call they respond to. In addition to responding to emergencies, all members of the fire district, both career and POCs, also participate in public education events and help maintain equipment at their stations.

Our fire district includes nine stations providing emergency services over approximately 250 square miles, including the cities of Brentwood and Oakley, as well as the communities of Knightsen, Bethel Island, Byron, Discovery Bay, and the Marsh Creek area as far as the Clayton town line.

Knightsen Fire Station is staffed totally by POC firefighters.

The station providing protection for the Marsh Creek area is contracted to CDF (California Division of Forestry). The fire station is located on Marsh Creek Road near Morgan Territories Road and is responsible for the area from Clayton city limits to about Deer Valley Road.

Managing the fire district isn’t an easy challenge because of the need to deal with the enormous growth going on in the area. We’re in a process of formulating a master plan, which will account for the emergency issues and concerns that we anticipate will arise over the next twenty years.

The master plan will do such things as to identify the growth projections, appropriate level of staffing, station coverage, and risk assessment for the two decades ahead. It will be a comprehensive plan both in terms of the areas it will cover, as well as the people who will be helping put the plan together.

Each community and other stakeholders will have a representative to sit on the planning committee. Organizations that will send a representative include (among others):

• Labor organizations
• The East County Planning Commission
• The two POC groups from Oakley and Knightsen
• The Sheriffs Department
• CHP
• American Medical Response (ambulance service)

The final version of the master plan will be the product of cooperative efforts by these representatives working with representatives from each community. An outside group, called City Gate, that helped formulate the master plan for Brentwood development, will manage the process.

The master plan will be complete by this spring. We know for sure that, due to the growth in the district, over the next few years we will need additional fire stations and staff.

A Life of Memorable Service
I’ve had many heart-warming experiences during my decades of working with fire departments. Every time a firefighter goes out on an emergency run it means that someone is having a bad day. That fact takes on positive overtones, however, because it also means that we have the opportunity of making things better. We can minimize damage to buildings, save family photograph albums (which is the loss most lamented in home fires), and reassure people on the scene.

Best of all, of course, we have the opportunity, on some occasions, of actually saving someone’s life. What could be more heartwarming than to realize that some people are alive today who would be dead if not for your intervention?

Another heart-warming part of the job is the opportunities we have of working with kids to teach fire safety. Most of the kids love it when the firefighters visit their school. They are all smiling. Their eyes shine and get really big when they get to go near the shining fire engine that is sitting in their schoolyard! It’s a great experience for everyone! And I’m sure we end up encouraging good attitudes towards, and habits about, fire safety during these visits.

I’ve been at big fires where I’ve had to pause in frank awe at the power of the inferno that was blazing in front of me. A really hot fire is simply amazing.

Our training enables us to run into buildings that other people are running out of. The fact is that good firefighters learn from every call they make. There aren’t any experiences that we can’t learn from.

In 1985 I was a Captain at the scene of a widespread terrible wildfire in Los Altos Hills. The weather was hot and windy, and a wild land fire burned from one fire district right across the boundary into another.

The fire turned really ugly when it burned its way into some eucalyptus groves. The oily wood of these trees is particularly flammable and the situation really blew up in our faces. The inferno ran over the top of a hill along the 280 Interstate and right into a community of million-dollar homes.

Going up against a runaway fire, as big as that one is like warfare. We went into pitched battle trying to save as many structures as we could. In the end we lost nine of those beautiful houses. A few others were damaged, but we succeeded in saving most of them.

Even after two decades I can still close my eyes and picture what it was like on that day of fire, smoke, and fury. On the one hand our hearts ached for the people whose lovely homes had been swept away, together with all their worldly belongings. On the other hand, however, we derived enormous satisfaction from the knowledge that without our intervention that fire would doubtless have done a lot more damage.

Best of all, not a single life was lost. In fact, nobody was even injured.

Play it Safe During the Holidays
The holidays, which are supposed to be times of joy and celebration, sometimes become occasions of tragedy and loss. I urge you to be especially careful this year.

Chimney fires are a common source of holiday tragedies. If you burn wood or wood products, don’t take any chances with this. Clean your chimney every year. If these aren’t cleaned regularly, a hot fire can ignite the byproducts lining the chimney walls and catch the roof on fire.

Just as dangerous with these chimney fires is that flames often seep through cracked mortar onto roof joyces. The fire begins burning in these hidden locations and the homeowner doesn’t realize there’s a problem until it is far too late.

For another thing, don’t empty ashes from your fireplace into plastic bags. I’ve known of cases where people did this and then disposed of the bag in a plastic garbage can, which was leaning against their house.

“I thought those ashes were cold,” they say later after the fire is over.

Just dispose of them in metal containers, or at least soak the ashes before putting them into the garbage can.

Here are some other simple precautions you can take to avoid a holiday disaster:
Make sure that live Christmas trees are in containers with water to keep them from becoming dangerously dehydrated and inflammable. Check the water level in the container every day!

• Don’t put a live Christmas tree near space heaters and heating vents.
• Check Christmas lights on the tree to make sure there is no fraying of the wires and throw away the light string at the first sign of wear or fraying.
• Don’t build huge bonfires in your fireplace. Always use a screen to keep sparks from flying out. Never leave children alone in a room with an open fire.
• Don’t leave food cooking unattended. I’ve been at tragic fires that were begun when the cook left her stove while running an errand.
• Don’t leave holiday candles burning unattended. Use non-tip candle holders or, better yet, put them in a hurricane globe. Keep candles away from decorations and curtains.

We’ll help you if you catch your house on fire, but it’s better for all of us if you try not to. We like helping people when they get in trouble, but we like it even better when they don’t get into trouble in the first place.

Trust me when I say that we would much rather be opening presents and drinking eggnog in our own homes than dragging hoses and first aide equipment through yours!

So get fired up for Christmas along with us — but not literally. God bless you all. Have a merry and safe holiday season!

NOTE: You can drop off new toys and nonperishable food items for our holiday distribution projects at any time at any of our fire stations.