Calling on the Volunteer Fire Dept.

She’s 5 foot 2, weighs 105 pounds, and since the first of the year has been fire chief in this tiny mountain town 70 miles north of Fresno.

Her husband is the town fire captain and her two sons are volunteer firemen. In Bootjack, just as in many remote, rural California communities, volunteer firefighting is a family affair. It also is an essential part of community life that depends exclusively on citizens for financial support.

“There isn’t much to do in this neck of the woods, so, many people join the fire departments or fire department auxiliaries,” said Fire Chief Ruby Pearson. “This is where the action is.”

Bootjack, population 300, has 15 firefighters, including Pearson, 40, a homemaker, her husband Keith, 41, a truck driver, and sons Richard, 21, a well driller, and Robert, 18, a high school senior.

Up the road 15 miles from Bootjack is Mariposa County’s other female fire chief, Debra Roufs, 32, head of the Midpines Fire Department the last four years. Her husband, Don, 48, an upholsterer, is one of 14 firefighters in the community of 900.

Mariposa County is a county of 15,000 people and no incorporated towns where all 270 firefighters are members of 14 small-town volunteer departments.

“None of us gets paid for being a firefighter,” explained Debra Roufs, who is also a dispatcher for the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Department. “It is our way of doing something for our community. We would not be doing this if we did not love it.”

“So many different people from so many walks of life become firefighters to protect what we have,” said Don Roufs. “My life is so much fuller because of this.”

All volunteer fire stations in Mariposa County were paid for through donations and fund-raisers and constructed by volunteers, fire department auxiliary groups and members of the community.

In Bootjack the firehouse was in an old chicken coup until the community raised $26,000 and volunteers constructed a two-story building, now valued at $140,000. Fire Chief Pearson’s father donated a half-acre for the station.

Bootjack residents raised another $8,000 for fire hoses and other equipment. A developer in the area gave the town a 1963 Dodge fire truck. The Fire Department paid $1 to the city of Los Angeles for a surplus 1962 GMC fire truck.

To raise money, “We roll out the fire trucks and have bingo games in the firehouse every month,” said Beth Marino, 60, founder-president of the Bootjack Fire Department auxiliary. “We have a pancake breakfast every other month, frequent flea markets and sell T-shirts that say: ‘If you don’t know where Bootjack is, you’ve flunked geography.’ ”

A plaque in the firehouse at Midpines lists 63 local residents who contribute more than $100 a year to the department. In addition, “An awful lot of people donate $25 and $50 a year,” said Debra Roufs.

A volunteer must complete a 16-week course in firefighting given by Columbia Community College and must be certified. Each firefighter spends several hours a week in training year-round.

They carry beepers at all times. When a call comes, they drop whatever they’re doing. Shopkeepers close stores. Carpenters, plumbers and construction workers set aside their tools. At Mariposa High School, the county’s only high school, seniors Robert Pearson, Gordon Dulcich, 19, and Shane Warner, 18, dart to their pickups.

The county gives so much attention to firefighting that “our fire insurance rates are lower than most rural, wooded, mountain areas in California,” said Bob Bondshu, 58, an insurance agent and former chief of the Mariposa volunteer fire department. “We will not insure a place unless we are certain it is fire safe,” he said.