Supporting their ‘family’

Young Chang

If family doesn’t look out for each other, who will?

That’s how Costa Mesa firefighter Todd Palombo sees it.

New York, California, it’s all the same department, said the

paramedic. He needs to raise money to help his colleagues.

Palombo and other members of the Costa Mesa Fire Department sold

bracelets, T-shirts and stickers Saturday to contribute to the New York

Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund. They hope to raise at least

$100,000 through two more fund-raisers during the month -- one scheduled

at an open house Saturday. Newport Beach firefighters are also selling

the bracelets at their fire stations.

“I can’t go there,” Palombo said. “So the next best thing is to help

them financially. They were no different than us. There was a true

brotherhood-sisterhood.”

And shared traditions.

In every fire station around the country, the previous day’s team is

greeted by a fresh crew that relieves the weary of duty and takes on the

new day.

In Costa Mesa, this switch happens every morning at a large dining

table near the kitchen. Each of the city’s six stations has a table such

as this, where firefighters sip coffee and talk. They start with the

department’s problems, which are solved in an hour.

“Then we go on to the state, and then the federal problems,” said

Randy Kroll, captain of the paramedic engine, during lunch this week.

His colleagues laughed. Kroll was joking, of course. But his message

was that firefighters talk, like family members do.

They dine together, sleep in the same quarters and see the best, as

well as worst, of each other during 24-hour shifts. Firefighters

everywhere do this.

“That’s why it was such an emotional outset for the people back

there,” Battalion Chief Brian Roberts said. “They work together, they

live together, they often depend on each other for survival.”

Kroll supported this statement by pointing with a fork to each of his

colleagues.

“I have to trust him and him and him,” he said.

For lunch, Capt. Kirk Dominic made a barbecue chicken salad with

mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes, corn and feta cheese. Everyone shared a pod of

Hawaiian bread.

Kroll peeled the hard-boiled eggs, engine medic Peter Hay set the

table with silverware.

This also happens across the country, the officers said. Firefighters

in New York cook lunch and dinner together every day too.

But more unifying than the cooking, sleeping and coffee-talking

traditions is the shared bond of being the “people running in when

everyone’s running out,” said Tom Arnold, deputy fire chief of the

Newport Beach Fire Department.

“We do the same job. It doesn’t matter where we are. Anywhere around

the world, we understand that firefighters risk their lives no matter

what part of the world we’re in,” he said.

And Sept. 11’s losses have reminded everyone of this. Costa Mesa

firefighter Dan Stevenson said people walk up to him “out of the clear

blue sky” to shake hands and say thank you. His colleague Doug Prochnow

met a 14-year-old girl the other day who walked over to his truck and

just stood there.

“She kind of just stared at me,” the firefighter said. “I think she

just wanted to see a fireman.”

Kroll added that no rescue mission is a one-man job.

“The team is what gets the mission done,” he said. “And if one of us

doesn’t do our part, one of us could get hurt or killed.”

The duty still stands after the fact. Though lives have been taken and

tears abundantly shed, Palombo is intent on helping the widows and

orphans of slain safety personnel, which includes police and Port

Authority officials in New York.

“I can’t imagine now what they’re going through,” he said of the

firefighters still working on recovery efforts. “The fatigue, mentally

and spiritually, to dig out what’s left of their personnel.”

But the unimaginable wondering only makes him work harder to help.

It’s the least he could do, he said.

Arnold, from Newport Beach, agreed.

“We feel the same loss as if they were our own,” he said.

FYI

WHAT: Costa Mesa Fire Department will sell bracelets, T-shirts and

stickers to donate proceeds to the New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster

Relief Fund

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, in conjunction with an open house

WHERE: Station 5, 2450 Vanguard Way, Costa Mesa. The fire department

will hold another fund-raiser Oct. 27 at Home Depot, 2300 Harbor Blvd.,

Costa Mesa.

COST: $10 for bracelets and stickers, $14 for T-shirts

CALL: (949) 933-2802