Too Hot to Sleep : Small Fire Station Carries Heavy Load of Calls--Nearly 5,000 a Year

PANORAMA CITY — Weary but undaunted, paramedic Robert Johnson started the second of two consecutive 24-hour shifts at his fire station this past week with only four hours of sleep after working through a busy night.

But the next shift would offer no respite. Before going home, he would go out on another 13 calls to treat people suffering from seizures, shortness of breath, stomachaches, chest pains and emotional breakdowns.

Johnson didn’t even get a break when he went off duty to fix a broken siren on his ambulance. On the way to the auto shop, he came across a five-car accident and was forced to stop to check for injuries.

“The pace can age you a little faster,” Johnson said with a tired smile. “But if you keep a good attitude, it’s not that bad.”

Welcome to Station 81, one of the busiest and smallest fire stations in the city. Equipped with only one fire engine and a lone ambulance, the station received nearly 5,000 emergency calls last year--almost twice the citywide average.

Four times a day, the station’s crew gets two or more simultaneous calls, forcing adjacent stations to fill in. Even more troubling, the station’s average response time is 7 1/2 minutes, about a minute longer than the citywide average.

To ease the burden, Mayor Richard Riordan’s annual budget has proposed a new $1.1-million station in the area. The facility, which would be located near the site of the old GM plant, would be the only new fire station built in the city in the past 20 years.

But until the station is built--possibly next year--the pace of work at tiny Station 81 continues unabated.

“If there is a reputation for 81, it’s that you will be up at night,” said Firefighter Mike Raden.

The workload for firefighters has increased throughout the entire northeast San Fernando Valley due primarily to dramatic demographic changes over the past few decades.

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The Valley fire districts were drawn more than 40 years ago, when the region was populated mostly by tract houses and orchards. Fire stations were built miles apart to reflect the Valley’s sprawl.

But since then, parts of the northeast Valley have become as densely populated as the inner city. Massive apartment buildings and condominium complexes now crowd thriving industries and commercial zones.

“The San Fernando Valley has changed from a bedroom community to high density neighborhoods and commercial zones and that requires more resources,” said Battalion Chief Dennis Keane, who oversees the Fire Department’s planning unit.

Congested intersections and clogged freeways in the Valley’s notorious roadways also contribute to the slower response times.

The situation is aggravated in the northeast Valley by a large population of poor immigrants who have no health care and must rely on the Fire Department for treatment of everything from heart attacks to diarrhea.

“We are the doctors to thousands and thousands of people,” said Capt. Paul Aker, who works in the adjoining Station 98 in Pacoima.

Station 81 serves a district that covers more than eight square miles of dense working-class neighborhoods and commercial strips.

A few stations in South-Central and downtown Los Angeles get more calls annually than Station 81, but those stations serve areas of only two or three square miles and are equipped with at least twice as many firefighters and paramedics.

When emergency calls overload the crew at Station 81, department commanders must play a giant chess game to move resources around the city to keep all the stations staffed.

“If we run out of ambulances--and it happens often--it affects the whole city,” Aker said.

But mostly, Station 81 handles the load on its own.

The brown and beige station was built in 1950 to resemble a typical Valley family home. In fact, the only thing that sets the station house apart from other homes in Panorama City is the towering garage that houses the engine and ambulance.

When it was built, fire officials thought the station could be sold as a residential dwelling once a larger replacement station was built. To store extra equipment, firefighters had to put a temporary storage bin behind the garage.

But the replacement station never came. Today the station houses six firefighters and paramedics.

The men and women who work in these cramped quarters don’t fret much about the conditions. But many firefighters complain about the continued budget increases for the Police Department at the expense of the Fire Department.

“All the workload has increased dramatically and we have not complained, but it has now caught up to us,” said Battalion Chief John Nowell, who oversees the entire northeast Valley area.

To cope with the workload, firefighters and paramedics citywide have tried to implement some shortcuts.

For example, a pilot program was launched this month that allows paramedics to treat certain medical emergencies without getting prior clearance from doctors. This allows paramedics to work faster. Most medical calls take nearly an hour, particularly when a patient must be transported to a hospital.

To free up more time for firefighters, the department also began this year to cut back on the number of fire inspections for certain businesses and buildings that do not pose a fire hazard. Inspections of large apartment buildings and businesses that use hazardous materials have not been cut back.

But the shortcuts have not stemmed the workload.

Weary firefighters say they are lucky to complete a meal without being interrupted by a call.

Plates full of food are often left wrapped in foil at the station’s kitchen by a firefighter called away in the middle of a meal.

Raden recalls a day last week when he and other firefighters from Station 81 were called out after lunch to douse a brush fire in the Tujunga area. They did not get back to the station until 8:45 p.m. But before they could pick up a meal from a nearby restaurant, they were summoned to a medical emergency call.

“No one can keep that up physically every single day,” Raden said.

An uninterrupted night of sleep is also a rare luxury.

Johnson, a paramedic for 13 years, noted that on a recent Saturday he went on his first call at about 9 a.m. and continued to receive calls until 4 a.m. the next morning.

Instead of going to bed, he said, “I just crashed on the TV chair and waited for the next call.”