The Eclectic Bunch : Volunteer Firefighters Flourish in Fillmore

The group includes a few mechanics. A butcher. A tractor salesman. A minister and a city councilman.

By profession it’s an eclectic bunch. But they share one hobby--firefighting.

Established in 1914, the 20-member Fillmore Volunteer Fire Department is one of the few volunteer stations in Southern California to flourish as other cities have turned to professional firefighting teams.

Among Ventura County cities, Santa Paula also uses volunteers to augment a small full-time force. But unlike Fillmore’s department, Santa Paula’s volunteers are paid an hourly wage for each call.

In Fillmore, the volunteers are the primary firefighters in a 1 1/2-square-mile city of 11,000 people. They do not tackle toxic chemical fires, high-rise infernos or other emergencies that call for specialists. County firefighters are on call for those situations.

But Fillmore residents rely on their volunteers to fulfill a wide variety of more routine emergency duties.

There are stove fires and brush blazes to tame, babies to deliver, idle hearts to resuscitate, and bloodied car crash victims to remove from twisted wreckage. In addition, the volunteers often help the Ventura County Fire Department on calls outside the city.

“Everyone is on call 24 hours a day,” said Pat Askren, the department’s 47-year-old chief. “If you’re in town, you’re on call.” The 6-foot-plus, mustachioed Askren and his assistant, Capt. Al Huerta, are the only salaried employees in the department. The rest merely get allowances to replace damaged clothing.

The volunteer brethren hastily leave jobs and families behind when prompted by the rousing melody of tones sounded by their omnipresent belt-clip pagers.

The dispatch alerts commonly ring at inopportune times: Thanksgiving dinner, a child’s birthday party, smack in the middle of a good movie.

“My wife and I have been caught in the theater more than once,” said 15-year volunteer Pat Brewster, 44, whose wife, Linda, is a Fillmore city councilwoman. The Fillmore Towne Theater is close to the fire station, Brewster said, “so I make sure she’s got the keys to the car and I just run down the street.”

The volunteers pride themselves on a lightning-fast response time, although the compact size of the town helps.

“It doesn’t take long to get to where you’re going in Fillmore,” said 20-year volunteer and City Councilman Roger Campbell.

Dispatch records kept by the Ventura County sheriff’s and fire departments show that the station’s average response time--from the time a call is received to the time firefighters arrive on the scene--is about 2 1/2 minutes. That includes night calls, when most members have to awaken, suit up in full firefighter gear--always kept by their beds--and rush to the station to meet a departing engine.

Four-year volunteer Ricky Barajas, 30, recalled springing from bed about 4 a.m. recently to assist at a birth in progress. A young woman was giving birth to a son in the front seat of a car. There was no time for the 13-minute dash to the nearest hospital, Santa Paula Memorial.

Six volunteers responded to the emergency dispatch, said Barajas, a public works employee in Fillmore. More were on the way, but a second dispatch notified others that sufficient help was at the scene.

“We got to the house real fast, but she already had the child,” said Barajas, a father of two small children.

Normally the volunteers would have cut and secured the umbilical cord. This time was different.

“It was real cold that night,” he said. “We didn’t cut the cord. The baby would stay warmer that way.”

Such medical know-how is administered almost daily by the volunteers. Sixteen have received state certification as Emergency Medical Technicians. Seven of the EMTs are certified to operate a defibrillator, which zaps an idle heart with a powerful electrical jolt.

The EMTs are an important addition to a community without a hospital. More than 80% of the station’s 900 or so annual responses are for medical needs, rather than fires, Askren said.

“We were the highest medically trained people in town before the city (contracted for) paramedic service a few months ago,” said Steve Crawford, 40, a 13-year volunteer and owner of a tractor dealership.

Thousand Oaks-based Pruner Health Services operates one ambulance in Fillmore. A paramedic and an EMT are on standby around the clock. The firefighters will still respond first to all calls, but a paramedic will take over when needed.

Fillmore’s volunteers say community service is a main reason that they serve in the department. Some, such as the chief’s son, Pat Askren Jr., 23, hope to use their volunteer experience as a springboard to a career in fire prevention.

With 4 1/2 years of service, the younger Askren is a newcomer compared to the mostly middle-aged men in the department. Ten of the firefighters have double-digit tenures. Curtis Adams, 48, an assistant fire chief, has been at it the longest, 27 years.

The group’s diversity of backgrounds provides a kind of “in-house expertise” that is often useful in the field, Chief Askren said.

Electrical problems? Adams is a Southern California Edison Co. supervisor. Appliance malfunction? Enter Askren, a former repairman. Automobile snafus? There are those mechanics.

The expertise of one volunteer was invaluable after the department fought to save the life of a 9-month-old child who was badly burned in a house fire last year.

“The baby was alive when we got to the room,” Askren said. “We tried to save the child but it was burned over about 80% to 90% of his body.”

Some of the volunteers took the death hard, and three-year volunteer Chris Cone--minister of the Faith Community Church in Fillmore--was summoned to help them deal with the stress.

“Just to be there in times of trauma and in need has been real rewarding,” Cone said. Cone’s counseling skills are called on for all fatalities to comfort the bereaved as well as his fellow firefighters.

“It’s a demanding job,” said Campbell, an assistant fire chief and auto repair shop owner, of the volunteer’s lot. “You have to have a desire to help the community.”

Robert McKeon, chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council in Washington, said many volunteer firefighters throughout the country commonly receive “paid-call” stipends, an hourly wage for calls they attend.

Such is the case with the Santa Paula volunteers, who earn anywhere from $5.50 to $11 hourly, depending on their rank.

Not so at the Fillmore station.

“We don’t get paid enough to even talk about it,” Campbell said. Fillmore volunteers earn a $75 monthly clothes allowance. Another $75 is awarded monthly to those with EMT certification.

“When someone pats them on the back and says, ‘Thanks for saving my house, you did a great job,’ I think that’s their pay,” Askren said.

While department turnover is low in Fillmore--one firefighter leaves about every two years--Askren said he now has about 20 would-be recruits. Few fulfill the criteria for the volunteer position, however.

To prevent their numbers from being depleted during the day, volunteers must live and work in town before being considered for one of the few openings.

“It’s getting more and more difficult,” Askren said. “People living here are having to take jobs outside the city.”

The city of Fillmore saves more than $500,000 annually by having a volunteer department, Askren said. The alternatives would be to contract with the county Fire Department or pay for a full-time city department.

“The cost to run a station with a full-time staff comparable to ours would be about $1 million annually,” said Fillmore’s finance director, Allan Coates.

City Councilman Don Gunderson said: “We couldn’t afford to run the city if we didn’t have the volunteers.”