To Volunteer or Not to Volunteer

Bishop Fire Department, or Bishop Volunteer Fire Department, hereafter known as BFD, is an interesting blend of organizations. It could be said that it is actually three departments in one fire department. Let me try to explain.

Bishop California is an incorporated city with a population of 3500 during the 80s and 90s. The greater Bishop area, with all the unincorporated area, has a population closer to 8,000 or more.

Because of these numbers the city of Bishop purchased fire trucks that were considered “city trucks”. That meant that unless extremely unusual circumstances warranted it, those trucks could not leave the city limits, presumably keeping them in reserved to respond to fires of city residents and taxpayers.

On the other hand the remainder of the residences lived in very clearly defined “Bishop Rural Fire District”. This district and the city of Bishop had completely different governing bodies, funding and goals.

Neither the city nor the fire district had its only fire department, but relied on the Bishop Volunteers to respond to their area with the appropriate truck or equipment.

In addition to the city funding and the fire district funding the volunteers had their own internal funding. More on that later. With this funding the members of the BFD purchased or built their own trucks that were available for use.

So all that being said, here was the breakdown of how the trucks could be utilized during the time that I served.

City of Bishop
All equipment must stay inside the city limits
3 pieces of equipment

Bishop Rural Fire District
All equipment must stay inside the fire district but could be used inside the city, since the city was surrounded by the fire district.
8 pieces of equipment

Bishop Volunteer trucks
14 pieces of equipment that we could take anywhere we wished. We owned them and could take them outside the district to neighboring towns or even throughout the state.


Apparatus List – as best as I can remember
Engine 1 City of Bishop 65 ladder
Engine 2 Volunteer truck – built in 40s and used for parades, etc.
Engine 3 Volunteer truck – 750 gallon per minute pumper (one of my favorites)
Engine 4 Volunteer truck – 500 gpm pumper, limited use
Engine 5 Volunteer rescue rig
Engine 6 City of Bishop – 1959 American Le France (another favorite)
Engine 7 Volunteer Truck - quick response with 200 gallons – 1964 Ford with 14,000 miles
Engine 8 Volunteer truck - Newer Rescue Rig
Engine 9 Volunteer truck – Brush rig 2000 gallons, AWD
Engine 10 Volunteer truck – quick response with 400 gallons
Engine 11 City of Bishop – Fire Chief’s truck
Engine 12 Volunteer truck – Brush rig with 3000 gallons AWD
Engine 13 Volunteer “truck” – golf cart, never started or used during my tenure with BFD.
Engine 14 Volunteer truck – 3500 gallon brush truck AWD

R1 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R2 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R3 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R4 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R5 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R6 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R7 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Pumper
R8 Bishop Rural Fire Dist. Quick response truck

There is one more truck I haven’t mentioned yet. It was named OES160. It belonged to the State of California Office of Emergency Services. It was not used often but we would take it out fairly regularly to run it and exercise the pump, etc. The point of this truck is that the state could call for it and we were required to man it with 3 men and take it anywhere we were told to take it to assist wherever it was nee

So all that being said, when we received a fire call we needed to first determine where the fire was, decided which agency’s equipment we used and then select the correct type of equipment. This always was a bit of a challenge.

Calls would come over our pagers as “Attention Bishop Volunteers, Attention Bishop, we have a report of a structure fire at 1916 Lazy M Lane. Please respond”. At this point the wheels in our heads would turn as fast as the wheels of our vehicles as we drove to the firehouse.

Chasing on a Stingray

For as long as I can remember I would get pretty excited to hear and then see the fire trucks responding from the station on Panamint in Ridgecrest. In those days we would hear “the bonk” of the firehouse. The bonk was simply an air horn that we as kids only knew as the bonk. It would relay, in coded bonking fashion, the location of a fire. Now don’t misunderstand, the bonk would not be able to give an actual address, but in those early days (50s, 60s and 70s) it would indicate a section of town that had a particular bonk pattern assigned to it.

Growing up, we lived about 5 blocks north of the firehouse and anytime we heard the bonk I would jump on my red Schwinn Stingray, complete with a white banana seat and a short “sissy bar”, and chase the fire trucks. Chasing isn’t a fair description. I would really listen for the direction of travel and try to meet them (beat them on a good day) where I figured they were going. If there was a column of smoke, that made it all the easier.

Why do I take you on this walk down history’s dirt road, you ask? Well, many of my stories will be situated around the years I spent as a volunteer fire fighter with the Bishop Fire Department.

The Bishop Fire Department was organized about 1905 and I joined in 1984. At the time Charlotte was four and Cara was 2 years old. I remained with the department until I left the area in 1996. I have no doubt had we stayed in the Bishop area I would still be extremely active and involved, because I miss it to this day. The men that I associated for those 12 years were of the finest quality. Some were close friends, others were only good acquaintances; but they all were like family. It just gets that way.

In a future posts, I will give a detailed description of how the department was organized and how it operated so that you may be better able to visualize the stories I will relate.

“Hey Dad, tell the story where you….”

For years my kids have been hinting that I should put some of my stories on paper. They often say, “Tell the one…..” Once I even created a list of stories that my kids love and even some they’ve never heard while flying from the Freeport, Bahamas to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I’ve not made much progress on that list because it seems silly to write them down and save them to the hard drive of my laptop, leaving no chance they will be read. So I decided to use this forum for such efforts.

So from time to time I will post a story that is completely out of context with current events and you will now know why. Unfortunately, my guess is that I will go down in history as a better storyteller than a storywriter. I have never figured it out, but often I simply start a story and they are laughing. It must be something to do with my face or my mannerisms. Either way, I will promise to make a grand effort.

Many of my stories will be centered on Ridgecrest, where I was born and raised; but most will be from my 20 years in Bishop, California. I have many experiences with and without my kids there. All three were born there, Charlotte in 1980, Cara in 1983 and Alessandra in 1991.

Bishop was also the place that Melodie and I moved to as soon as we were married in 1979. Although I had lived there previous to that date Melodie, the girls and I remained there as a family until 1996, when we moved to Seattle.

So, keep an eye out and you may have a chance to hear a new tale….

Football, Family, Food and a Foot

Well it’s common knowledge that I like to watch sports on television. I am one of those lucky guys whose wife also enjoys sports on the tube. Now years ago I’d have said that football was my favorite sport to watch on TV, but compared to baseball the season is just too short for me to stay on top of it. It seems like most games are on Sunday, which these days tend to be the busiest day of the week for me. Baseball on the other hand is much more Steve-friendly. There are 162 regular season Mariner games on each year and I manage to catch 20 or 30 on TV, maybe a half dozen at the stadium and listen to most of the remainder on the radio. I’m sorry, football and basketball are much too fast of a game to listen on the radio, but baseball….that works!

All that being said I do look forward to the Superbowl each year. With our meeting block ending and 12:00 noon this year I am able to have my other meetings that day and still get home in time to watch the game.

Usually its just family that gets together at our house, but this year we went to Cara and Eric’s great little condo. Cara has it looking so warm and cozy and it was very fun and comfortable. We had a great afternoon watching what may have been the better of superbowls in the past few years, sprinkled with some of the most boring commercials known to man. I was sure glad there was food nearby to take my mind off them.

And what food we had!! Cara and Melodie did a fantastic job with lots of awesome treats. Football food galore. I didn’t really eat that much but I sure felt sick later. I think I either ate more than I realized (was it the 7 deviled eggs??) or I got some cross contamination with wheat somewhere. I think it must have been the former because my girls are very careful about keeping the food gluten free. Oh well, I do feel better today.

Let me say this about the game. It was a good game. However, it felt like the Cardinals were Seahawked a number of times including that final touchdown. Santonio Holmes did make a great catch, but from where I was sitting (3500 miles west of Tampa) it looked like his right foot did not touch the ground, but was caught by the cleat of his left foot.

I’m just saying…….