‘Old Timers’ Never Tire of Chasing . . . er, Leading . . . the Firetrucks

To be a member of the largest volunteer firefighting organization in this rural Northern California town, you have to like fighting fires at any time.

It would also help if you were over 60.

Outfitted only with a 1948 firetruck, a few fire hats and a hose, the Old Timers Firefighters are the first line of defense against wildfires and mobile home fires threatening the town’s 1,000 residents.

The Old Timers’ average age is 66; the oldest is 87. The crew has 17 members, with five of the oldest given honorary membership.

“My wife has some concerns that I’m too old for this. She thinks I’ll go out to a fire and maybe not come back,” jokes Old Timer Lee Rice, 79, a former Los Angeles police officer and retired insurance agent. “I just tell her to bite the bullet. Heck, I’m not too old.”

The Old Timers do not have enough training to win recognition by the California Department of Forestry as an official volunteer force. Tehama County pays the CDF to serve as the county firefighters.

The town does have an official volunteer force, Station 13, but it only has five firefighters, and just two or three are home during the day. It might take 30 minutes for its volunteers to get to a mobile home fire at the back end of town. The CDF usually takes longer.

Marg Jekel’s home caught fire a few years ago. The Old Timers rushed to the rescue in their 1948 Reo firetruck, decommissioned from CDF and given to the Old Timers “for $700 and a promise never to bring it back,” the Old Timers joke.

Jekel, a retired nurse and Old Timer, said the group was shooting water at her blazing home several minutes before the town’s official volunteer force arrived.

“I just thought that was so great, that they helped save my house, so I decided to join,” Jekel said, brushing aside a lock of gray hair.

Rancho Tehama, nicknamed “The Ranch,” is 150 miles north of Sacramento, where the plains of the Sacramento Valley roll into wooded foothills of the coastal range. There is little mown grass, just well-kept weeds. It is so difficult to navigate the rural roads that ambulances often call Old Timers to guide them to emergency medical calls.

More than half of the Old Timers’ homes have caught fire. Even in the wet seasons the expanses are covered in dry brush and dead trees. A few water storage tanks and the 500 gallons of water stored in the old truck replace city fire hydrants.

The elderly firefighters often scrounge around town collecting recyclables. They wear nylon red jackets and hydrant-red baseball caps with foam fronts and mesh backs.

“There’s a few people down here that nearly entirely support us with regular bags full of beer bottles. It’s so thoughtful,” said Dick Van Roggen, 75, who used to work for the local telephone company.

They’ve earned enough money to buy a 1955 Dodge water truck, but it needs a transmission.

They don’t go inside burning buildings because they only have a few odd-sized fire suits. Most of the money goes to the liability insurance bill and maintaining the 1948 truck, which they call “Old Faithful.”

It almost always starts, the firefighters insist. When it doesn’t, half a dozen Old Timers put their hands on the small hood, coaxing the flooded engine and murmuring words of encouragement.

That doesn’t last long.

“Oh, start, you old bat,” hollers one.

“It never does this, promise,” said another.

Although the volunteers are almost all older than the truck, they seem to have more get-up-and-go, including Merle Lint, 87, an original member. The Old Timers group was founded 21 years ago, when official volunteer firefighters couldn’t be over 65, Lint said.

That rule no longer exists, but the Old Timers probably wouldn’t pass the health requirements.

“We are just being neighborly. It gets dangerous,” said Lint, who still runs the truck’s water pumps if he can hitch a ride with another Old Timer. Except for the few that drive the truck, almost everyone takes their own cars to the fires.

That neighborly feeling is nearly burned up in California and across the nation, said Jeff Sedivec, president of the California Firefighters Assn.

Many people living in areas covered by volunteer stations--at least 80% of the state--work several miles away and are unable to get off work when sparks start. Others don’t have the time for frequent training sessions, Sedivec said.

The result is dangerously understaffed volunteer stations that have high turnover rates and are also often stuck with slim budgets.

Residents of Rancho Tehama are undoubtedly safer than in other communities with few official volunteers, said Anthony Ramirez, assistant fire chief of Station 13.

“They are a big help. Sometimes we don’t show up at all if we’re all out of town and it’s really important that they get water on a fire as soon as they do,” Ramirez said.

The Old Timers know the dangers--and their own limitations. Upon arriving at a fire, they ordinarily turn off the outside propane tank that fuels most homes here, then pour water on the flames until the regular firefighters arrive. Then they fetch water for the regular firefighters. They also alert Station 13 when a call turns out to be a false alarm.

“Certainly there is a danger, but when you see those guys leading you to the fire and know they have got there first, it’s very much appreciated,” said Bill Hoehman, chief of the Tehama-Glenn CDF Fire Department.

“I think they go into the fires intelligently and certainly there are unforeseen dangers. But when you have these actively involved citizens, what else can you say but thanks? Especially these days when you are seeing less and less of that,” Hoehman said.

But the future of the group is unclear.

They learn about the fires from Plectron receivers that only transmit calls for local fires.

Kriss Brown can’t go on fire calls for health reasons, but works as the group’s dispatcher, regularly waking up to the “squawk that could raise the dead” and then calling each Old Timer.

The receivers are so outdated that only two of the five boxes work and parts are no longer made. When the last boxes die, it may be difficult to find out where the fires break.

The Old Timers are confident that they won’t be forgotten.

“There will always be a need for us and we have such a good time we will always be doing it,” Van Roggen said. “That’s a promise. It’s our responsibility.”

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National Volunteer Fire Council: www.nvfc.org/