Firefighters set to move into new home

Mathis Winkler

SANTA ANA HEIGHTS -- On Friday, a single, dark brown armchair still

looked a little lost in the otherwise empty trailer at the corner of

Zenith Avenue and Orchid Street.

But by this week -- today at best and Friday at the latest -- the

box-like building will be furnished and up and running as Newport Beach’s

newest fire station.

After a county fire station in the airport area caught fire last

December and went out of service, city officials decided to jump in and

take over the job. As a result, Newport Beach’s firefighters have

responded to calls from two rooms at the Radisson hotel for the past two

months and have used down times to get to know Santa Ana Heights -- an

unincorporated area the city is expected to annex by early 2002.

The new station will be only temporary. City officials have leased the

land from the county for two years at $1 a year. For the past few weeks,

city crews have graded the lot that was covered with weed and slapped on

a foot-thick asphalt layer to handle the 40,000-pound engine. A permanent

fire station will be built later, once the neighborhood becomes part of

Newport Beach.

While the hotel folks had been great to the city’s firemen, Capt. Paul

Matheis said he was looking forward to checkout time.

“It was nice while it lasted,” Matheis said Friday, taking a break

from constructing a wheelchair ramp outside the trailer with several

other firemen.

The new station’s fire engine 67 -- the “6” stands for Newport Beach,

the “7” for fire station No. 7 -- was parked just down the street.

“But you can’t do all the things you do on a daily basis,” he said.

“[A fire station] is kind of like your house. You set everything up and

know where things are.”

The building’s large front section will include a kitchen and both

living and office areas. In the back, the three firefighters on duty will

find beds and lockers as well as two bathrooms.

City officials estimate that the project will cost about $608,860 this

year. That includes hiring nine new firefighters, who began a weeklong

training course Saturday. They’ll begin responding to calls by the

weekend, said Newport Beach’s Fire Chief Tim Riley, adding that the new

guys are already state certified as firemen.

Back on location, where faint whiffs of nearby horses welcomed the

firemen to the equestrian neighborhood, Matheis said it was up to him and

his colleagues to make sure residents wouldn’t come to see the newcomers

in a negative light.

“The onus is on us to be good neighbors,” he said, “not going blasting

down the street, making a lot of noise.”

And while Riley had said the station probably didn’t have enough room

for workout equipment -- a perk dearly missed by some firemen during

their hotel days -- Matheis said he’d try to figure something out.

“I’ve got little tricks up my sleeve,” he said. “Without exercise, it

feels like you haven’t completed your day.”