SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Since 1953, Volunteer Has Battled the Blazes

When Leonard Goodwin began fighting fires in South County, the landscape looked a little different.

It was 1953 when the volunteer firefighter joined the Orange County Fire Department, and there was no Interstate 5 stretching to San Diego. Planned communities like Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita weren’t even on the drawing board yet.

The son of a volunteer firefighter, Goodwin has fought many of the major blazes in the area over the past four decades, including the recent disastrous fires in Laguna Beach and Villa Park.

“The only other fire I fought which was more intense as far as flames and winds was the Paseo Grande fire in 1967,” said Goodwin, 65, who battled the Laguna Beach blaze all night. “We didn’t lose as many homes in that one.”

A 58-year resident of San Juan Capistrano, Goodwin was one of several volunteer firefighters who were honored recently for length of service by the Orange County Fire Department. The next-longest term of service was 15 years.

More than 683 volunteers are on call to battle fires around the clock in Orange County. For their tough and dangerous work, they get a small fee--about $7 per hour.

“It’s certainly not enough to compensate them for the hassle,” said Orange County Battalion Chief Ron Blaul, who worked with Goodwin for several years in San Juan Capistrano. “These are people who aren’t into firefighting as a career but do it because they love the work.”

A retired San Clemente policeman, Goodwin works out of Station 7 in San Juan Capistrano, where he won the Orange County Paid Call Firefighter of the Year Award in 1991. He followed his father as a volunteer fireman, working with him in 1953-54, and eventually saw his own son become a paid-call firefighter as well.

Continuity has also been his professional specialty. Goodwin has been an instructor in several training sessions for new volunteers and says preparing the next generation of volunteer firefighters is one of the reasons he has stayed in fire service so long.

“I enjoy training the young firefighters and getting them ready for action,” Goodwin said.

Blaul said Goodwin’s detailed knowledge of South County terrain has been invaluable to firefighters. “The first thing I did when I saw smoke off Ortega Highway was swing by the San Juan station and grab Leonard,” he said. “Then I knew I could find the fire.

“When you’ve been around that long and seen so many changes, that experience is invaluable,” Blaul said.