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.