Costa Mesa firefighters welcome back captain after his third overseas tour as military pilot
Costa Mesa fire Capt. Bruce Pulgencio has two passions in life: firefighting and flying.
Pulgencio, 58, was all smiles Wednesday as he walked into Costa Mesa Fire Station No.5 on Vanguard Way for his first full shift after serving overseas as a senior pilot with the California Army National Guard for more than a year. His return marked the end of his third and final deployment for the military.
All eyes were on Pulgencio as his colleagues and Fire Chief Dan Stefano celebrated his return.
“We’re so proud to have him as part of our family,” Stefano said. “He’s served our country and he means so much to us. The Costa Mesa fire family is so proud of him.”
Since 2004, Pulgencio, a Costa Mesa native, has served in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn and most recently Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan and Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait.
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FOR THE RECORD
An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed Operation Freedom’s Sentinel as Operation Sentinel Freedom.
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But ever since he stepped off a plane at John Wayne Airport from Kuwait in October, Pulgencio has been working 40 hours a week for Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue, mostly in an office, brushing up on new standards and procedures.
It’s not exactly the adrenaline rush he’s used to when working 24-hour shifts for the fire department or flying in a military operation.
“Firefighters love working in the station running calls,” Pulgencio said. “When they go upstairs and they’re in administration, 40-hour work weeks, it’s the kiss of death.”
But he acknowledged it’s necessary to bring him back up to speed. On his first day riding on a fire engine shadowing another captain, Pulgencio said, he forgot how to change the engine’s status after transporting someone to a hospital.
“If you don’t do it every day, it doesn’t stay as part of your thought process,” he said. “It’s just little things like that that are so important, because we need to be Johnny on the spot. We need to be quick, decisive and accurate.”
Pulgencio began working for Costa Mesa’s fire department in 1989 as an intern and steadily rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a captain in 2002.
At the same time, he has pursued his passion for flying, compiling 1,100 combat flight hours during his military tours.
He followed in his father and older sister’s footsteps and joined the Navy in 1976 under the delayed-entry program as a student at Costa Mesa High School before transitioning to the California Army National Guard, where he cemented his love of flying.
During his last tour, he was a senior standardization officer in the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, conducting flight evaluations for pilots and crew chiefs and traveling to Iraq to fly missions with UH-60 Black Hawks, AH-64 Apaches, CH-47 Chinooks, fixed-wing aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems.
Pulgencio said he hopes to eventually combine flying and firefighting as a helicopter pilot for a fire department or sheriff’s department in California. He said he’s been applying for a while, and although positions are hard to come by, he’s not giving up.
“That’s my ultimate goal,” he said. “It’s been my goal since the first day I started here.”
