A Close- Up Look At People Who Matter : Firefighter Struck Gold in His Career

As a Los Angeles firefighter for 32 years, Darrell DeMontes has found water to be both an ally and a foe.

“I really enjoy water, one way or the other. It gives me a purpose,” said DeMontes, 60, who spent the last 18 years assigned to Engine Co. 84 in Woodland Hills. He recently was named Firefighter of the Year by the American Legion post in Woodland Hills.

As an engineer, DeMontes pumps water through the hoses from the 1984 Seagrave pumper he drives to fire scenes.

In March, 1978, DeMontes and four other firefighters won the Medal of Valor for a rainy-day rescue. A mudslide surprised their fire captain, who was swallowed up by the mud and broke both legs before being rescued. DeMontes was briefly caught in the mud himself, before he was able to roll out and help with the rescue.

Now that he is retiring, he plans to spend much of his free time in water and mud--panning for gold.

For the past 20 years, DeMontes has spent his vacations as a gold prospector on the Trinity River in Northern California.

“I love diving for gold,” said DeMontes, who found his claim on a fork of the river by befriending one of the old prospectors in the area. He spends about four hours a day--two hours at a time--underwater to get about one and a half ounces of gold.

“I don’t feel you could make a living at it,” DeMontes said. “It’s got to be a hobby.”

DeMontes joined the Fire Department in 1962 when “there was a real macho image of being a firefighter.” He said, “If you came out of a building and your face was clean and you didn’t have snot and saliva coming out black, you weren’t a firefighter.”

Protective clothing, breathing apparatus and women joining an increasingly diverse department has eliminated a lot of that old-fashioned machismo, he said. Attitudes have changed, but one constant has remained.

“You can argue and have differences, but when the fire bell rings, you all work together to get the same end-result,” he said.

The camaraderie of the Fire Department has been one of the reasons DeMontes has stayed on the job for so long, and why four of his nephews and a brother-in-law have followed him into the profession. One nephew is fire chief for the city of Orange.

DeMontes, a Simi Valley resident, was happy just to be an engineer in Woodland Hills.

“I enjoyed it there so much I lost my desire to be promoted or to move on to another location,” said DeMontes, who discovered the narrow twisting roads in Woodland Hills made it one of the hardest fire districts for a driver to learn.

Driving a firetruck has changed over the years too. Now, he said, trucks must stop at red lights.

“We don’t drive as fast as we used to,” DeMontes said. “People are not as yielding as they used to be. They don’t like to yield their time or their space.”

One example, he said, was a woman driver who drove into the firetruck as DeMontes was attempting a left turn, even though she saw the flashing red lights that meant she should pull over and wait.

“I always drive like that,” was her answer when asked why she didn’t pull over, DeMontes said.

As DeMontes talked about his career at Engine Co. 84, 10 bells rang in the firehouse, the code used to announce the death of a retired firefighter. It reminded him of the camaraderie of firefighters.

“It’s like nothing I’ve experienced anyplace else,” said DeMontes, also a U.S. Coast Guard veteran.

That camaraderie and the sense of achievement in being a firefighter have been great motivators for DeMontes to stay in the Fire Department for three decades.

“Even though this is a busy house, I like being busy,” he said. “I’ve never got up in the morning and said, ‘Gee, I don’t want to go to work today.’ ”

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