Ready--and Waiting

Firefighter Dick Moore could see smoke billowing from below deck of the 35-foot pleasure boat tied in its slip at Marina del Rey.

Boarding burning boats usually made him uneasy, with all that fuel ready to explode and the hot deck spongy and shifting underfoot. But left unchecked, this fire could have spread, turning one boat owner’s bad luck into devastation for the 6,500-slip marina.

So Moore and fellow firefighter Fred Graves hopped aboard the burning boat, Moore carrying the hose and Graves following a few steps behind and to the side to provide support.

To put out the fire, Moore and Graves had to find its source amid the smoke and flames. Their hearts were beating faster from the exertion and the stress of not knowing how much time they had--but knowing there wasn’t much.

Then time ran out. An invisible wave whomped Moore full in the torso, picking him up--some 300 pounds, including the firefighting gear--and sending him flying backward up and out of the hold, clearing the first few feet of deck, then dropping him on his back, on top of the engine.

He knew instantly what had happened--an explosion--and also knew there was a good chance he was badly hurt but wouldn’t know for certain until his stunned nerves woke up and took inventory.

As Moore tried to roll off the engine, Graves clambered through the doorway, uninjured but with his pants on fire. Moore still had the hose. He turned on the nozzle and blasted Graves’ legs as other firefighters--as close as brothers after years of working the same shift--leaped aboard to pull them both to safety. Another crew member was calling for backup and a medical evacuation helicopter.

“They thought [it] had killed me,” Moore recalls.

In those few hellish moments, the firefighters of L.A. County Station 110 had done everything according to their training; amid the exertion and danger and adrenaline rush, the hours and hours of practice came together. Except for one part. Training holds that you triage the victim to assess the extent of the injuries before deciding to call for helicopter transport.

This time, the call for the helicopter went out immediately.

But this time, the victims were family.

Shared Purpose and Experiences

The boat was destroyed, the marina was saved. Six years later, Moore, at 56, has occasional back trouble--and one more story has been added to Station 110’s de facto family history of shared purpose and experiences.

L.A. County firefighters work a grueling cycle of 24 hours on/two days off, then 24 hours on/four days off. It leads to more than the usual workplace camaraderie.

Plus, they exercise together. They train together.

“We eat together. We sleep together,” says Jerry Patten, 54, a captain at Station 110, where 27 firefighters are assigned in three shifts of nine each.

And at fires, Patten says, “you display the same emotions as each other, see the same tragedies. That just brings everyone close. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to survive, with all the things we see.”

At Station 110, they also have a history that binds them. Most of these men are within a few years of retirement. Getting posted here often means a reunion with former shift mates from other stations.

Experts recognize that most people who work together for years develop an affinity for each other, a relationship that has the feel of an extended family. Tamara K. Hareven, professor of family studies at the University of Delaware, studied the phenomenon among textile mill workers in Manchester, Mass., for her book, “Family Time and Industrial Time” (Cambridge University Press, 1982).

“They had a common purpose in producing good work, protecting their rights as workers and improving working conditions. That brought them together,” says Hareven, adding that the bond can extend deeper within smaller groups of workers, particularly firefighters. “Having to face danger and having this ulterior purpose of saving people and actually going through these kinds of crises . . . bring them closer together.”

Carl Mattox, 53, a 29-year veteran of the department, is still haunted by the severed limbs he encountered in 1986 after a small plane and an Aeromexico DC-9 jet collided over Cerritos, killing 82 people. It left a permanent, visceral memory that can be fully understood only by someone who has had a similar experience.

“You see all this gore, and it’s like a living nightmare,” says firefighter Danny Sanchez, 51. “The worst part is kids drowning. You see suicides. But I’ve been on three baby deliveries.”

Insults and Mutual Support

Like those among brothers in a large family, their conversations are a mix of cutting one-upmanship and mutual support. Insults zip around the room. Perceived faults are magnified with gibes in an endless verbal sparring match. One guy talks too much. Another guy eats too much. A third guy can’t cook. Two men on the shift confide that they are divorced, one after his wife tried to kill him.

“Can you blame her?” someone shouts.

All this has a purpose. The firefighters constantly test one another’s resilience. The unstated question: If someone can’t stand the pressure of communal razzing, how will he perform in a smoke-darkened building, flames racing, with an injured partner to haul out?

“You’ve got to be able to adapt,” says firefighter John Mosher, 52. “If they find a soft spot, they just hammer away at it. . . . If you don’t fit in, they’ll let you know.”

The ultimate comeuppance: coming to the kitchen table and finding a transfer-request slip on your plate.

“There isn’t one guy in this station you don’t trust with your life,” Mosher says.

“There’s a lot of teasing and kidding around, but when the bell goes off, it’s all serious,” Sanchez adds. “Everybody knows what he’s doing. Everyone watches out for everyone else.”

The relationships extend outside the station. Mosher and Larry Colgan, 49, live in south Orange County and often get together socially. Moore’s and Patten’s families occasionally vacation together.

Four of the nine firefighters on their shift share an unusual hobby--they fly planes (Colgan turned the others on some years ago, after he built his own ultralight aircraft). Moore recently flew from Santa Monica to Pomona with shift mate Richard Gustafson, 55, to watch a mutual friend compete in drag races.

The ‘Rookie’ Has 33 Years on the Job

The rookie on the shift, Mosher, has been there for less than two years, after 16 years at other county firehouses. Patten, in his 33rd year on the job, has been at the station for nearly 15 years. Moore, who came out of the fire academy with Patten, has been at the station for 10 years. The rest fall between 20 and 30 years. All together, there’s more than 200 years of firefighting experience whenever the full shift responds to a call.

Which these days isn’t as often as it once was.

Patten’s crew averages three to four calls a day in a zone that covers some 30,000 residents scattered among condo high-rises, low-slung apartment complexes, single-family homes and 6,500 boats, about 650 of them with people living aboard.

The firefighters often are able to get in a full night’s sleep, unlike colleagues stationed at some of the county’s 149 other stations in areas such as Commerce and East Los Angeles, Compton and Pacoima--places where things happen around the clock, from fires to crashes to shootings, and where firefighters can go a full 24-hour shift without squeezing in a nap.

In some of those neighborhoods the calls can be especially risky. Firefighter Larry Westby, 53, tells of the time he and a fellow paramedic arrived at a shooting scene in Bell Gardens only to find the gunman still there, watching his victim bleed.

“I didn’t shoot him so you could save him,” the gunman said, waving paramedics away with his gun.

Openings at Station 110 are few and far between. Assignments are made through a transfer system in which seniority is a major factor.

“It’s the elephants’ graveyard, where everyone comes to die,” Sanchez jokes.

“At the twilight of our careers, we want to go to a nice spot,” Moore says. “And this is a nice spot.”

Station 110’s backyard is the marina itself, carved out of saltwater marshes in 1965 and filled with everything from fishing skiffs and kayaks to yachts. On a recent winter morning the water glistened in bright sunlight, the harbor mirroring the deep blue of the sky.

But the placid scene, like the slower pace, can be misleading. A key responsibility for the station is to be first to respond if an airplane from nearby LAX crashes off the coast. So each firefighter has been trained in water rescues. There are annual certification programs in which they jump from a helicopter to search for survivors and deploy self-inflating lifeboats.

And for all the camaraderie and mutual support, it is the work itself that provides the lure.

“It’s exciting, running into a building everyone else is trying to get out of,” Sanchez says. “It’s the smoke, the heat. You get like a little adrenaline rush.”

“The most satisfying thing,” Moore adds, “is the life saving. There’s nothing like knowing you actually saved a life.”