Volunteers in Defense of a Canyon : Do-It-Yourself Firefighters Team With Pros in Topanga

It’s common enough in medical circles for pocket beepers to go off at unexpected times.

But doctors and staff members were surprised the first time Harvey Herschman’s pager beeped during a UCLA School of Medicine academic committee meeting, when it sent Herschman racing to a brush fire in Topanga Canyon.

Herschman, 46, is a professor of biological chemistry. He is also a volunteer fireman in an unusual fire brigade.

Topanga Canyon residents formed their do-it-yourself firefighting team three years ago, after a brush fire swept through part of the heavily populated canyon and destroyed four homes.

The fledgling firefighters were trained by the Los Angeles County Fire Department and were issued helmets, coats and beepers. Then they were given a surplus county fire truck and told to use it to help the canyon’s lone professional fire crew at all future fires.

Since then, their beepers have sounded the alarm about 10 times a month, including those calls when Herschman and seven other volunteers have rushed to their well-polished fire engine only to find that the alarms were false ones.

The 14-year-old truck is kept at Topanga Canyon’s Fire Station 69, where the county’s full-time three-man engine crew is stationed.

“I’ve been shopping at the supermarket and eating at restaurants when the radio went off. I recently was at a party in Agoura Hills when we got called,” said Cathy Sullivan, a 34-year-old caterer who is the only woman on the volunteer squad.

“The first three people to get to the station drive the rig to the fire,” she said. “The rest of us take our own cars. We all carry our equipment in our cars with us.”

WELCOMED BY THE PROFESSIONALS

The professional firefighters from Station 69 often have the fire out by the time the homeowners arrive on their truck, its red lights flashing and its siren wailing.

But if the pros haven’t knocked down the flames, they are happy to see the volunteers come running with their hoses, said Station 69 Capt. Jon Galiher.

“I use them like any other engine company,” said Galiher, who has worked with the volunteers since the squad was formed.

Galiher is in charge of the training, which includes twice-a-month Saturday morning drills that supplement the 140 hours of instruction they received before being certified to respond to fires.

The volunteers are paid $7.35 for each two-hour period they work and are covered by county insurance during fires. Station 69 captains try to avoid assigning the volunteers to fires with high danger potential, Galiher said.

None of the volunteers has ever been injured fighting a fire, although the possibility always exists.

“I’ve found myself in the middle of the night taking an inch-and-a-half hose on top of a burning two-story building where I could see the flames licking around the roof and feel the roof getting hotter and hotter,” said 46-year-old Larry Cole, a photographer.

“Another time I fell through a floor of a burning mobile home. I knew you were supposed to watch everything. But I still fell through,” he said.

Each response helps polish the volunteers’ skills and smooth the jitters that come with each new emergency, he said.

TRUCK CRASH PROVIDES A TEST

Cole said he found that out recently when he happened upon a truck crash on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

The truck driver and a passenger were trapped inside the overturned truck’s flattened cab, panic-stricken by its still-racing engine and the gasoline that was trickling toward the motor.

Cole calmed the screaming victims by putting on his helmet and telling them he was a fireman and everything was under control.

In short order, he shut off the truck’s engine, sent a passer-by to call the 911 emergency number, tied a tow rope to his car to pull one of the cab’s doors open and then prevented other onlookers from yanking the victims free and thus perhaps causing paralyzing injuries.

“I let them wiggle out themselves,” he explained. “I figured that if they were hurt, they’d know it. They had crawled out when the fire department got here. By that time, I probably was in more shock than they were.”

That kind of quick thinking pleases Los Angeles County Fire Department Division Chief Ray Shackleford, who is in charge of all firefighting in the western portion of the county.

He said the Topanga Canyon squad has proved such a success that the county is stepping up recruitment and training of new volunteer members. The Topanga volunteer company is the only one of its kind, he said, although volunteers are teamed with paid firefighters on a smaller scale at scattered fire