Fishermen’s Future Goes Up in Smoke

Vito Terzoli grew up with the D’Amato brothers, Jim and Frank, in the tiny Sicilian fishing village of Balastrarte.

There, as boys, they learned to catch bonita and mackerel and anchovies. As men, they followed one another from the Old Country to San Pedro, where they hoped to earn a living off the same fruits of the sea.

Now in their 40s and 50s, Terzoli and the D’Amatos are business partners, owners of a 76-foot purse seiner they call the Anna Maria II. They have stuck together through the ups and, more recently, the downs that have plagued their industry.

Early Sunday morning, the boyhood friends stuck together again--this time in sorrow as fire swept San Pedro’s Fishermen’s Wharf and gutted the Anna Maria II, taking with it the only livelihood they have ever known.

Like most San Pedro fishermen, the D’Amatos and Terzoli could not afford to insure their boat. Nor can they afford to repair or replace it.

Now, they have no idea what they, or their crew members, will do for work.

“We’re in the hands of God now,” said Jim D’Amato who, at 44, is the youngest of the three.

The fire, which was reported at 4:18 a.m., charred 300 feet of wharf and severely damaged another purse seiner, as well as a smaller boat and three fishing nets. At times, flames rose 40 feet into the air, accompanied by thick smoke. Firefighters battled the blaze both on shore and from the water.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, and officials estimated the damage at $1,558,600. The nets alone could cost $100,000 each to replace.

But for the fishermen affected by the fire, no price tags can be placed on their losses.

Fishing, and its accompanying life style, runs deep within them. And so it has been with their fathers and, in some cases, their grandfathers.

Mario Carollo, the owner of the other purse seiner--which was heavily damaged and may be a total loss--explained it best Monday:

“This is a life. I can’t live out of the ocean. . . . The salt and the water, it gets inside the veins, inside the blood.”

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the harbor area, toured the damaged wharf Monday. Flores said she and other city officials would ask the state and federal government to help the fishermen, perhaps by providing low- or no-interest loans for repairs.

“The fishing industry and the fishermen, in particular, were in bad straits before this happened,” the councilwoman said. “And this was kind of the fatal blow.”

The San Pedro fishing industry is just beginning to recover from years of being battered by stormy economic tides. The closure of several canneries on nearby Terminal Island, as well as foreign economic competition, has left the industry struggling for survival.

Membership in the 60-year-old Fishermen’s Cooperative Assn., which hit a high of about 170 boats in the early 1960s, was down to 22 before the fire.

Despite such troubles, the lot of the San Pedro fishermen had been improving over the last year or so, since the cooperative bought and reopened a Terminal Island cannery closed by Star-Kist Foods Inc.

Frank Iacono, general manager of the cooperative, said the cannery is now buying more than $1 million worth of fish a month from the San Pedro fleet. In the past, he said, the fishermen considered it a good month if Star-Kist spent $350,000.

The fire, Iacono said, was a serious setback.

“Sure it hurts the industry,” he said. “It knocks two boats out of commission. We’ve got a plant that has to be run over on Terminal Island, and they need fish.”

In some ways, fishermen such as the D’Amatos and Terzoli are the last of a dying breed. Their boats are aging (the Anna Maria II is about 50 years old) and made of wood.

Most insurance companies, according to the fishermen, do not like to insure the old wooden boats. And, the fishermen say, the companies that will provide coverage want about $100,000--much more than they can afford. The underwriter that insured the Anna Maria II dropped the boat a year ago.

The fishermen met with Iacono after the flames were out. The cooperative leader said he told them that he would try to help them.

“They don’t have insurance and their life’s work is sitting there, all burned up,” he said. “It’s hard to take.”