Topping Off a Career : Firetrucks Retire to Palm Tree Maintenance

After two decades of screaming through red lights en route to burning buildings, two former Orange County firetrucks have been relegated to moping along quiet streets in second gear in search of shaggy palm trees.

Five months ago, the West Coast Arborists of Buena Park drafted the two obsolete trucks with elevated platforms into a new line of work: grooming the tall palms that dominate the Southern California landscape.

“We used to climb (the palm trees) like the telephone pole guys,” Pat Mahoney, president of West Coast Arborists, said of his nine-person crew. “It was definitely less safe.”

Before buying the trucks, the crews used shorter trucks or had to scale tree trunks with a chain saw hanging from their waists.

The palm pruning crew began grooming trees from the safety of a basket hoisted by a boom that once carried firefighters within range of upper floors and roofs engulfed in flames.

The firetrucks are now shells of their former selves. They have been stripped of their sirens, lights, radios and 3 tons of firefighting equipment and hoses.

Orange County Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Ahumada said the county auctioned off the 20-year-old trucks for $20,000 each because they require the help of an auxiliary truck with a pumping unit that forces water from hydrants to the hoses. New firetrucks include a pumping unit, so they need no second truck to tag along.

But the trucks have adapted well to their new job. “One of the keys to this job is having tall trucks,” said Andy Trotter, field operations manager for West Coast Arborists, who are hired by cities throughout the Southland to trim palms about once a year.

Trotter said the trucks are needed to deploy crews into trees that have grown past the 50-to 70-foot reach of the other trucks.

“Each year the trees get taller and taller,” Trotter said. “So we came up with these trucks to do the cutting.”

The trucks also save the palms from permanent damage caused by workers climbing the trees with spikes and straps.

“That is hazardous to the guys doing it,” Trotter said, “but it is also hazardous to the trees, because the trees cannot repair themselves” from the spike damage.