Olden days
Marisa O’Neil
It isn’t often that a birthday adds some 20 years to your age.
But when Costa Mesa Fire Chief Jim Ellis asked unofficial
historian and fire engineer Fred McDowell to look into the
department’s history for its expected 60th anniversary in 2006,
McDowell went one better. While digging through old photos at the
Costa Mesa Historical Society, he came across a photograph of six
serious-looking men posing on a fire truck with “C.M.F.D.” emblazoned
across its hood.
The photo was dated 1929.
“It got me wondering,” McDowell said. “If we’re older than 1956,
how old are we?”
Further combing through papers at the historical society unearthed
a 1925 announcement placed in the Daily Pilot’s predecessor, the
Newport News, announcing the election of Fred Bush as fire chief for
Costa Mesa’s newly formed volunteer department.
Now the department is looking for former volunteers -- or more
likely, descendants of volunteers -- to recognize during May’s fire
expo for the 80th anniversary of fire service in Costa Mesa.
“These were butchers, auto mechanics, a pharmacist, the editor of
the local paper, coming together to serve the community,” McDowell
said.
Some, like former chief and later City Councilman Bert Smith, went
on to hold public office, McDowell said.
McDowell so far has found one surviving member of the
all-volunteer department. Costa Mesa resident Everett Brace served in
the 1930s and 1940s, starting when he was just 18.
“All citizens have a duty to take care of the city,” Brace said.
“Back then we did what we did with what we had.”
And what they had was a temperamental “chemical wagon,” which was
nothing more than an open-top truck with two fire extinguishers on
the back, McDowell said. They kept it in a garage next to a metal
shop on Newport Boulevard.
Annual dances would raise money to buy any additional equipment,
such as surplus military fire trucks that the volunteers had to get
up and running.
The firefighters didn’t even have coats and helmets to protect
themselves during a fire.
“These men had nothing more than a hat and a badge,” McDowell
said. “They struggled to keep their equipment.”
Whenever a fire struck, he said, a bell would sound. The first man
to the fire station would write the location of the fire on a
chalkboard for the next responder to see.
The first few to the fire got $3 from the county, Brace said. The
rest got nothing.
The City Council started a paid department in 1956 but continued
to supplement it with volunteer firefighters until 1965.
Ellis, who started his career as a volunteer firefighter in
Romulus, Mich., said he has a soft spot for volunteer firefighters.
“I applaud them and have the utmost respect for them,” Ellis said.
“If they could let themselves be known, we would love to pay tribute
to them.”
* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be
reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.
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