COSTA MESA : Firefighters Raise Funds for Burn Assn.

Firefighters are willing to act a little crazy for a good cause.

That point was proved Tuesday when Firefighters Greg Jenkins and Ron Cookston climbed onto a hook and ladder truck and got themselves hoisted 40 feet in the air to raise money for burn victims.

From their small perch above an entrance to the busy Orange County Market Place, the two men hung a firefighter’s boot and helmet.

Then Jenkins used a megaphone to ask people to give money to the Orange County Burn Assn., a nonprofit group that helps burn victims.

Jenkins and Cookston are to spend 72 hours on their platform, which is used to fight fires at high-rise buildings. The men will sleep during the night and raise funds during the day. They will descend this evening.

“We’re having a great time,” Jenkins said between requests to shoppers to dig into their pockets.

“Hey, you want to give some money to burn survivors,” he told one woman who walked below on the county fairgrounds.

She didn’t, but organizer Joe Cucinotti said about $3,000 had been raised. “People have been very generous so far,” he said.

More than 50 firefighters from city and county departments also asked for donations, at entrances to the swap meet. Cucinotti said all are volunteers working around their regular shifts. The three-day drive will end today.

Last year, a similar effort raised $17,000, Cucinotti said. This year’s goal is $20,000.

The Orange County Burn Assn. was established in 1979. The group buys equipment and pays for research at the UC Irvine Burn Center. Volunteers also run support groups for victims of burns, help burned children adjust to school and lecture community groups on fire safety and first aid for burns.

Firefighters at the fund-raiser lectured about fire safety.

Tim Brun, a civilian firefighter at the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, brought the fire station’s mascot, Bopper, a 2-year-old Dalmatian, to teach fire safety to children.

Bopper’s trademark move is the “stop, drop and roll”--which he demonstrated over and over. Brun said that if a child’s clothing catches fire, he or she should roll on the ground to extinguish the flames.