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The Santa Barbara County Fire Department serves and safeguards the community from the impacts of fires, medical emergencies, environmental emergencies, and natural disasters through leadership, planning, education, prevention, code enforcement, and all-hazard emergency response.

Vision Statement
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department will be a model public safety agency, widely recognized for our effectiveness, regional strength, and community attentiveness.

Core Values
Commitment – Courage - Integrity - Innovation - Teamwork - Service

HISTORY OF THE

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

FIRE DEPARTMENT

by Robert J. Moseley

Prehistory

Santa Barbara County’s first known inhabitants, the Chumash people, dealt with fire in a practical, natural manner. They used limbs and branches from trees, chaparral, and grasses from their surrounding enviroment to build their homes and other necessities including weapons, plank canoes, clothing and so on. They also used these natural materials as fuel for warming and cooking fires. Naturally, effective village/wildland buffer zones were created as the populations reached further into the grasslands and forests for these useful materials. Wildland fires, often started by the Chumash’s escaped cooking fires could burn for months, until winter rains drenched the seemingly endless consumption of fresh, dry fuel beds. The County’s first fires were likely doused using ollas and tar-lined baskets filled with water pitched into the flames like a bucket brigade, smothered with thrown dirt, or patted out with mats or animal skins.

Early Days

The Federated Church in Goleta had just burned to the ground, nearly taking its pastor, the Reverend E. E. Fairchild and his young daughter with it. This tragedy, on March 23rd 1914, prompted the citizens of Goleta to organize the town’s first volunteer fire department with $250 raised in just a few days by Ed Blakeway, Frank Simpson, Harry Cunningham and Harry Sexton. The funds were used to purchase a bright red fire cart outfitted with a fifty-gallon soda-acid tank and hose.

Santa Barbara City Fire Chief John Dugan served as a consultant providing technical advice for the fledgling department. Stored in Mr. Simpson’s blacksmith shop on the corner of Hollister and Patterson Avenues, the cart was towed to fires behind a buggy or spring wagon with one of the volunteers hanging on to it by hand in lieu of a hitch.

The State of California passed a law in 1923, which authorized any unincorporated portion of a county to form a fire protection district with the approval of the voters living within the proposed district’s boundaries. These proposals were then processed through the county government and submitted to the Board of Supervisors for final approval. These districts are governed by the Board, or its designees, i.e., the fire commissioners.

On the 5th of October 1925, the Solvang County Fire Protection District was formed, beginning a long line of district formations, dissolutions, consolidations, and incorporations By the 20th of January 1958, the population density and associated development in the Goleta Valley had increased to a level warranting the formation of the Santa Barbara County Fire Protection Zone #1. Zoning allowed the Board to levy additional taxes sufficient to cover the costs of adequate fire protection for the increasingly urban areas. By 1966, the county had five fire protection districts and four fire protection zones.

Establishment

On 5 April 1926, on the motion of Santa Barbara County Supervisor Thomas J. Dinsmore and carried unanimously, a County Board of Forestry was adopted. This Board was comprised of five citizens, one from each of the supervisorial districts. A call for a special meeting on the tenth of April was made and it was on this day that Frank E. Dunne was appointed to the position of County Forester. This appointment effected the establishment of the Santa Barbara County Forestry Department, thus creating the first paid fire protection service for the County, which in the Board’s words “... is of vital interest to all of the people of Santa Barbara County.” Warden Dunne also served, simultaneously, for thirteen years, as the County’s Park Superintendent and Game Warden. Forester Dunne’s pay was $150 per month with an expense account not to exceed $50 per month. Large scale incidents— including the 60,000 acre Kelly Canyon fire in 1922, the 70,000 acre Oso Canyon and 27,000 acre Sweetwater Canyon fires in 1923 and the devastating effects of the Santa Barbara earthquake in August of 1925 created a prime political climate, which, coupled with the prosperous economic setting of the “Roaring Twenties,” contributed to the Board’s final and unanimous decision to implement a fire protection program for Santa Barbara County.

The Department’s first vehicle, purchased in 1926, was a pick-up truck equipped with a fifty-gallon drum and a fan belt-driven Panama pump. The first six full-time patrolmen used trailers loaded with various hand tools, including soda-acid extinguishers. These units, stored in Ballard, Cuyama, Gaviota, Lompoc, Santa Maria, and Tajiguas, were towed behind Model A’s and T’s to fire scenes where the patrolmen were joined by civilian volunteers in their suppression efforts.

The Thirties

During the depression years of the thirties, Warden Dunne added more personnel, the County’s first fire station, and new equipment, including its first fire engine. The first fire station was located several miles north of Buellton on the old frontage road in a former Santa Barbara County (Jonata) park (now an archery range where one can still see the cement foundations of the old apparatus bay, station office and housing in addition to at least some of the remaining old Conservation Corps planted pine trees). Established in 1932, the Jonata Park Station was situated on property purchased from rancher Glenn Buell a decade earlier for $3,750. It housed the fire trailers until 1933, when the Forestry Department acquired two new pick-up trucks equipped with panama pumps and small water tanks. One of these pick-ups was stationed on the South Coast at the County Courthouse in downtown Santa Barbara with the other one assigned to the Jonata Park Station.

Working conditions in these early days were rudimentary at best. In the Cuyama Valley, for example, a County Patrolman, Alynn L. Martin, was assigned each summer to live in a tent shared with a California Division of Forestry member. Martin used his personal vehicle, with the back seat removed, to accommodate as many hand tools as possible. When they responded to fires in the area, local ranchers, farmers, residents and passers-by would eventually rendezvous at the incident site to lend a hand in the suppression efforts. This collective effort was typical throughout the County and the tools carried in Martin’s car would be shared by all hands.

The largest fire in the County’s history, the Matilija, started on 7 September 1933, then burned nearly 220,000 acres of Santa Barbara and Ventura County’s rugged back country. (Three weeks earlier, on August 19th, the Indian Canyon fire burned 30,800 acres in the wilderness north of the city of Santa Barbara.) The following year the Department bought its first fire truck, a brand new 1934 Ford with a 240 gallon tank and a front-mounted Barton pump. It was stationed at the Jonata Park Station where it replaced the pick-up truck. In 1937, a second Ford fire truck was added to the Department’s growing fleet. It was housed at the Union Oil Company facility in Orcutt and was operated by their personnel. After one year of service there, it was transferred to Station 4 in Waller Park in Santa Maria where it was henceforth operated by the County’s forestry personnel. Around this time, seasonal crews were hired to burn off weeds alongside roads and assist permanent crews with their suppression activities. By the closure of Warden Dunne’s thirteen year tenure, the incipient Department had begun to grow at an accelerated pace into a more modern, multi-faceted department.

On the first of April, 1939, at the behest of the Board of Supervisors, Warden Dunne resigned, citing controversy between the Board and the departments he headed. It was at this juncture that the Forestry Department was separated from the Recreational and Park Department. The Recreational and Park Department was placed under the jurisdiction of the supervisor from each respective district and fire suppression services were assigned to a singular supervisor. The position of County Forester and the associated services of Warden Dunne were also discontinued temporarily as a legal formality to facilitate the transition of power. The Board then “...directed that Jack Anderson be placed in charge of the County fire suppression work, to be responsible to Supervisor Stevens.” On 24 April 1939, Jack Anderson was appointed to the “Office of County Fire Warden.”

The Forties

The forties were ushered in under the onus of war. In Santa Barbara County, construction of military air bases at Goleta and Santa Maria; and Camp Cook on the coastal plain west of Lompoc occurred. Eventually, these bases would be developed into two civilian airports and the sprawling Vandenberg Air Force Base. These facilities, with their associated air operations, required increasingly specialized firefighting equipment and training of personnel.

In 1940, the Department acquired its first bulldozer, a cable enabled TD 14. This procurement was followed in 1941 by a TD9 and in 1942 by a second TD14. Thus, the construction section was begun and projects such as fire road construction, fuel hazard reduction and suppression operations were undertaken.

The largest wildland fire incident of the forties, the San Marcos fire, started on the 26th of August 1944, and burned just over 12,000 acres. On the following day, a smaller fire in the Gaviota area started, eventually burning 1,165 acres of steep, mountainous chaparral. Tragically, this fire also mortally burned a fifteen year-old fireman named Richard MacFarland. Hired as seasonal crewman, MacFarland received such severe burns that he died the following day, sadly marking the Department’s first known fatality in the line of duty.

On 23 February 1942, at 7:07 PM, the Ellwood oil facilities were targeted and pelted by an estimated twenty-five rounds of 5.5 inch cannon fire from the Japanese submarine I-17, captained by Kozo Nishino. Nishino reported by radio to Tokyo that he had left Santa Barbara in flames. His boasting was apparently false however, for luckily, only a catwalk and tin shed received some slight shrapnel damage. The County, as well as the nation, seemingly dodged a “bullet” that evening as the light damage incurred required no response by fire resources. Captain Nishino, it turned out, had been a skipper on an oil tanker that frequented the Elwood facilities prior to the war.

Resolution number 7047 of February 3rd 1947, depicted a pay scale for all positions as pre-requisite to the establishment of a payroll system for the County Forestry Department per section 4288 of the Political Code. Examples of the compensations include:

Forester and Fire Warden: $390.00/month

Fire Suppression Foreman: $257.00/month

Fire Patrolman: $219.00/month

Lookout Observer: $135.00/month

Dispatcher: $155.00/month (plus housing)

Bulldozer Operator: $230.00/month

Fire Truck Operator: $175.00/month

Fire Laborer: $.75/hour

On March 10th 1948, Warden Anderson’s career made an abrupt change when he was arrested by Sheriff John D. Ross on a seven count felony indictment issued by the grand jury. The charges included grand theft of county funds and forgery. Apparently, he purchased two trailers from the War Assets Administration in Port Hueneme for $70 and $73, respectively, then sold them to the county for $200 each. Having also done the same thing with a couple of anchors, he was finally terminated by the Board on 15 March 1948. On March 16th 1948, forty year-old Varian A.(Bud) Wadleigh, fire control officer for the Santa Maria Ranger District of the U. S. Forest Service, became the County’s third Forester and Fire Warden. His starting salary was $375.00 per month.

The Fifties

The fifties were a decade of accelerated growth. Under the direction of Chief Wadleigh, many new facilities throughout the county were built to meet the increased needs of the communties.

On January 265th 1950, the Goleta Lemon Association packing plant burned to the ground. At one and one-half million dollars, this was the largest single structure loss to date in the County, surpassed only by the Potter Hotel fire of 1921 in the City of Santa Barbara. The processing plant, torched by an arsonist and unprotected by modern fire protection devices, burned to the ground in just a few destructive hours.

Also in 1950, a comprehensive “Rural Fire Protection Report” was written for the County by the Board of Fire Underwriters of the Pacific in Los Angeles. This report reviewed the Department’s existing resources and services, concluding with a summary and eighteen recommendations, most of which have been fulfilled. Ironically, only recommendation number eight, which was highlighted as being of “…greatest importance” by the Board’s engineers, has yet to be completely implemented. It stated, “That paid manpower be increased to five men for structural response on each piece of apparatus responding to a fire...”. The report also stated that the Department had 19 apparatus manned by 26 paid personnel supplemented by 27 volunteers, twenty-five at Orcutt and two seasonally assigned to Gaviota. Most of the apparatus were equipped with “two-way” or “three-way” radios and the greatest pump capacities were 500 gallons per minute on seven of these engines. During the forties, the annual budget for the Department was approximately $80,000, but it jumped to $140,000 by 1950. At this time, the County was divided into five districts, each with a District Fire Warden in charge: Carpinteria, Montecito, Mission Canyon, Solvang, and Los Alamos.

In response to the “Rural Fire Protection Report,” resolution number 12928 a Santa Barbara County Fire Prevention Commission was established on December 28th 1953. This commission was charged with “...the prevention of destruction by fire of agricultural products, natural resources and structural improvements through cooperation with the County Forester and Fire Warden and other governmental agencies in the dissemination of fire prevention education information.”

While responding to a fire near Refugio, District Fire Warden William D. Marxmiller, age 31, received fatal injuries on May 4th 1953, when the fire truck he was driving plunged down a 125 foot embankment at the intersection of Highway 101 and Hollister Avenue then known as the Ellwood Wye.

On 10 July 1953, the Big Dalton fire began, burning over 73,000 acres near Santa Maria. The most notorious fire of the fifties, however, began in an outbuilding housing a generator at Rancho la Scherpa on the south aspect of the Santa Ynez range near the summit of Refugio Canyon Road on September 6th 1955. Burning 84,770 acres and sixteen homes in its relentless eastward spread, it took just thirty hours for the fire to consume 41,000 acres from Gaviota to Ellwood Canyon. It then burned for the next nine days, wandering up and down the tinder laden south-facing slopes towards Santa Barbara before control declaration was made near San Marcos Pass on September 15th. It caused more than two-million dollars damage to ranch-related improvements. Interestingly, several mysterious explosions were reported coming from the brush as this fire burned through Winchester Canyon. These were attributed to unexploded ‘dud’ rounds from the 1942 shelling by the Japanese submarine. The region of this fire has remains mostly unburned to this day and its forty-five year old chapparral now surrounds many more structures and improvements.

In 1954, the Range Improvement Association was organized to facilitate a program of planning and implementing prescribed burning. The history of cooperation between the ranchers and the department has been beneficial to both parties by improving grazing and reducing fuel loading in the prescribed regions.

In 1956, the Forestry Department’s name was officially changed to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. In the following year special fire zones were established with special tax rates for structure fire protection. These zones had special fire protection needs related to criteria such as population density or commercial development and manufacturing facilities. Beginning in 1958, all fire apparatus were painted white to provide a more visible, safer appearance.

A flurry of fire station construction took place throughout the County in the fifties. February 6th 1951, marks the date that the 2 part-time patrolmen were stationed in New Cuyama in their temporary quarters, a small Quonset hut. Just over a year later, on April 16th 1952, Fire Station 6 (now Station 41) opened on property purchased by the County from the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company. July 1st 1957, marked opening day for Station 10 (now Station 23) in Sisquoc. A month later, on August 8th, Station 9 (also known as Station 33) was opened at Cachuma Village at the base of the Bradbury Dam. Station 8 (currently Station 24) opened on January 20th 1958, in Los Alamos.

On the 29th of September 1958, Station 1 at 4550 Hollister Avenue (now station 13) was completed at a cost of $66,213. (Until its completion, the crew there had shared quarters with City firemen at an old military-city station at Hoff Heights, near what is now the Earl Warren Showgrounds.) Five years later, in 1963, four living units, or small houses, were completed. These living units were inhabited by married personnel, whose wives would work at the stations as dispatchers for their respective districts. This arrangement was typical of the period and most of the houses are still standing at Stations 11, 13, 24, 31, 51 and 41 where today they serve as offices or residences.

The winter rains of the 1957-58 season brought fruition to a project that would dramatically change Santa Barbara County: Bradbury Dam’s Lake Cachuma spilled on 12 April 1958. It’s 210,000 acre-foot capacity opened the gates to unprecedented growth on the South Coast and provided the extinguishing agent necessary for the Department to effectively keep pace with its burgeoning responsibility to provide public fire protection. The forty-three million dollar project had first provided contract water two years earlier when the dam opened on March 1st 1956.

The Sixties

Warden Varian A. Wadleigh retired from office on August 1st 1963. On July 16th of that year the Board of Supervisors recognized his exceptional fifteen years of service with resolution number 23315 and he was lauded “...for his many years of devoted service and for the high standard of efficiency which he has established in the Fire Department of this County.”

Deputy Warden Victor L. Mohr was appointed as Santa Barbara County’s first Fire Chief on August 1st 1963. Chief Mohr is credited with the planning and implementation of the 9-1-1 emergency program for the County. He also favored forming a county-wide fire authority that would have blended the County, City and District agencies, but the idea never progressed beyond the discussion phase. In this same year, the watershed protection jurisdiction was established covering most of the County’s 2,200 square miles. This jurisdiction charged the Department with preserving the vegetation on the slopes and drainages of the mostly mountainous terrain, thus minimizing the impact of erosion and generating new revenue with which to fund the now rapidly growing Department. This growth was manifested in the opening of Station 15 on June 11th 1962, Station 5 (now 51), on January 5th 1964, and Station 13 (now 22), on June 6th 1966. Station 22’s crews were eventually relocated to their current facility at Tiffany Place in Orcutt on April 15th 1981.

The population of the Goleta Valley tripled in the sixties, from 20,000 to over 60,000. The growth of the University of California, the City of Santa Barbara, the town of Goleta and the influx of research and development industries in the latter set the stage for an unprecedented housing boom, all of which required increased fire protection. Chief Mohr met the challenge of the sixties’ growth with increased staffing and the construction of many new fire stations. In a contract with the Mission Canyon Fire Protection District, the Department agreed to provide fire service to their community on June 11th 1962. Initially operating out of a rented house on Dorking Place, 15’s crews eventually moved into their current building in June of 1970. Station 51 was opened on February 3rd 1964 at a cost of $106,000. Station 31, which replaced old Station 3, was built on the site of the old Buellton Elementary School at a cost of $149,000. Its construction was completed on 20 July 1965, whereupon a five-man engine company and four-man construction section took to quarters. A short time later, while responding to a brush fire, an unchained bulldozer slid off of a transport while turning right onto Highway 101 southbound. Fortunately, the dozer landed upright, was reloaded and continued (now securely chained!) to the incident. On the 4th of January 1968, personnel moved into the $38,000, 1,600 square-foot Victor Mohr Administrative Center at 4410 Cathedral Oaks Road. The following day the $191,000 Station 11 and its two duplexes were moved into by it’s personnel and their families.

By 1960, the total number of safety personnel in the Department was fifty-two. By the end of this decade the number of personnel had nearly tripled to one-hundred forty-four. The workweek in the late fifties and early sixties was a grueling 144 hours per week with six days on and two days off. This led to an incredibly high turnover rate that peaked in 1962 at 96 percent! Of the thirty-three allotted firemen’s positions, thirty-two resigned. The six years previous to 1963 had an average of 64 percent turnover. This turnover rate created a void of experienced personnel, prompting Chief Mohr to formally request the Board of Supervisors’ approval for a shortened workweek for his men. He requested that four extra firemen be hired to effect a workweek reduction to 120 hours, thus facilitating a three days on and two days off schedule. In 1969, County resolution further reduced the workweek from 101 to 84 hours.

The Coyote Fire began on the 22nd of September 1964 and burned 67,000 acres before it was controlled by a force of one-thousand firemen and two B-17 ‘borate bombers.’ The Coyote Fire’s toll included the life of a Forest Service fireman, 45 year-old John L. Patterson, who attempted to escape entrapment on Romero Saddle. His three companions remained in place and received minor injuries. There were at least thirty more injuries to firemen on this aggressively attacked fire. More than twenty homes were destroyed including the twenty room mansion of Avery Brundage, the president of the International Olympic Committee. A brief, front page article in an ‘extra’ edition of the Santa Barbara News-Press reflects the working conditions of this era. It read:

“WIVES MAN THE STATION WHILE MEN ARE AT FIRE,”

Who mans the county headquarters fire station on Hollister Avenue when the men go to fight the Coyote Fire?

Why, the wives, of course.

“We have a full complement of wives here tonight,”said one of the fireladies, who didn’t want to give her name. She said there were four wives on duty, and “we’ll just have to stay up all night.”She said it was traditional in the County Fire Department for the wives to take over the station when their husbands were fighting fires. They handle the radio traffic and telephone calls. And last night they had one additional chore they rustled up hamburgers for the men on the fire lines.

This wind driven fire—clocked at sixty knots in Santa Barbara, was slowed dramatically when a reversal of winds finally kicked in at about 2:30 am. The down canyon drafts subsided, as did the temperature, and a cooling, moisture-laden marine breeze wafted up from the Santa Barbara Channel. The Coyote Fire tallied a nearly $5,000,000 structure/contents loss and $13,000,000 watershed loss. Born of this loss was a committee chaired by Supervisor Curtis Tunnell to study the feasibility of controlling brush overgrowth in watershed and urban/wildland interface areas using a variety of methods including controlled and prescribed burns.

Two years later, the Wellman fire near Santa Maria scorched over 93,000 acres. A smaller, 600 acre fire west of Los Alamos in August 1968 burned three firefighters. John Irwin Worley, age 32, a county fire dozer operator, died ten days after receiving third degree burns and a broken leg on that fire. On the 9th of May 1969, Battalion Chief Vernon E. Wise suffered a massive, fatal heart attack while attending a convention in Idyllwild, California. Closing out the sixties was the environmental catastrophe that would long alter county, state, and national perceptions of petroleum operations and environmental issues the Santa Barbara Channel oil spill.

The Seventies

The seventies were ushered in with the Isla Vista riots that resulted in the burning of the Bank of America building by anti-Viet Nam war activists comprised largely of University of California students. Although flames were visible from Station 11 on Storke Road, the bank on Embarcadero del Mar burned without prompt suppression activities because initial approaches to the scene were repelled by rock-throwing protesters. Numerous other fires in dumpsters, vehicles, and burning barricades of trash and debris—plagued County firemen throughout the nights of February 25th and 26th 1970, (nuisances that continue to be seen on a smaller basis in Isla Vista to this day). Six weeks later, on April 17th, a 22-year old student, Kevin Moran, was shot to death as he attempted to douse the flames of a Molotov cocktail thrown into the partially rebuilt bank building.

Yet another on-duty fireman fatality occurred at Station 24 in Los Alamos when 26 year-old Mark F. Common, suffered a heart attack on 17 February 1970. His fellow firefighters attempted resuscitative efforts, but were frustrated by the severity of the attack.

The largest wildland incident of this decade, the Romero fire, had a far greater toll than its 14,538 charred acres and structural losses. Four firefighters, three from Inyo National Forest and a contract dozer operator from Arroyo Grande, were overrun on the volatile eastern flank of the fire. An unanticipated wind change was the precipitating factor in this tragedy. The three forest service crewmen, Richard Cumor age 26, Delbert Deloachage age 26 and Thomas Klepperich age 21 and the ‘dozer operator, 43 year-old Leonard Mineau died. Two other operators were seriously burned in the same burnover. Thirteen aircraft tended the fire, including four B-17s and a prototype C-130 from the Air National Guard. The fire was started by an arsonist on October 6th 1971, and burned for eleven days. On the 13th of April 1973, a mental patient from Santa Ana residing at Atascadero State Hospital, was arrested and indicted on charges of arson and first degree murder.

Station 4 (now station 21) was relocated in 1949 from Waller Park to a World War II era building on Sabre Drive at the airport, finally ended up at its current location next to the main terminal on June 1st 1970. Station 14 opened its Los Carneros site on July 13th 1970, just six weeks after Station 21’s opening. Located in a grove of trees in Los Carneros Park, this station retains a rural feel to this day. Several years later, on the 28th of August 1975, Station 33 on Highway 154 was closed after years of sevice.

Subsequent to voter approval in November 1970, a new, county-wide Civil Service System was presented to and approved by the Board of Supervisors for implementation on July 1st 1971. Prior to this date only the Sheriff’s Department was covered by Civil Service rules and regulations.

On June 1st of 1971, Firefighter’s Local 2046 was chartered to organize and represent the interests of the Department’s safety personnel. County employees, including firefighters, initiated a strike on June 2nd 1975 that lasted eight days. During this period of time all County fire stations were closed and emergencies were responded to by sherriff’s deputies and some of the striking firemen. The strike resulted in a five percent wage increase, a dental plan, and a two-phase workweek reduction. Until this date, firemen had been working a 66.5-hour week. In September of 1975, it was reduced to 60 hours and in January of 1976 it was further reduced to the current 56 hour week. Interestingly, only four percent of California’s firefighters worked a schedule as long as Santa Barbara County’s before the strike. The 140 striking firefighters were placed on a six-month probation and had their pay raises delayed for twelve weeks by Chief John Risdon.

Chief William J. Patterson, a 26-year veteran of the Long Beach Fire Department, assumed command of the Department in December 1976. Popular with the rank and file of the floor personnel, Chief Patterson is credited with improving morale. He also is responsible for the creation of a master plan which identified various elements and needs for the Department, including the organization of a reserve firefighter program for four North County stations: 24, 31, 51, and 41.

Fifteen men comprised the first Firefighter Recruit Academy which began on October 9th 1972. All of the recruits graduated from the class (with five still on active duty today!). Thus commenced the formal process whereby all subsequent recruits to the Department were trained before beginning their respective station assignments. The Department’s paramedic program was initiated in 1975 with the first graduating class of the Goleta Valley Hospital Paramedic School. This school, which taught prospective paramedics for the following four years, was founded by Dr. John D. Dorman and run by a registered nurse, Kathy Morgan, who was invaluable in maintaining the integrity of the program. The school’s first class had fifteen graduates, eight of whom came from the Department. These eight medics were assigned to Station 11’s rescue unit and Station 51’s ambulance. The complement of graduates went to work for the two local private ambulance companies.

On the 19th of March 1973, the Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to consolidate the University of California at Santa Barbara’s fire department with ours, resulting, on April 9th, in the creation of Station 17.

On the 30th July 1973, the fifteen person Hot Shot hand crew was organized and was assigned to Santa Ynez where they shared the aging, corrugated steel facility with Station 32’s engine company and the construction section. This seasonal crew was rapidly deployed to wildland incidents during fire season and provided useful ground support for operations including prescribed burns, range improvement fires as well as off-season maintenance projects for flood control and urban/wildland interface fuel buffering. The ‘Shots were disbanded in the winter of 1991 as a result of budgetary constraints, much to the chagrin of operations personnel.

In late 1976, the Board of Supervisors voted unilaterally to impose a 63-hour work week which remained in effect until the 27th of August 1980. It was an eventual change in the composition of the Board’s membership that ultimately resulted in a successful ending to the three and a half year plight to reinstate the 56-hour week. Coincidentally, this was also Chief William Patterson’s last day in office.

1977 was a year of great human tragedy. A devastating wildland conflagration in the foothills above Santa Barbara, the Sycamore Fire, began on 27 July 1977. This fast-burning fire consumed only 805 acres, but it took a toll of more than 200 homes. Initially thought to be an arson set fire, it was later determined to be an accidental start from a kite entangled in high voltage power lines. Largely as a result of this tragedy, Chief Patterson was able to secure funding for the purchase of eight new CF model Mack fire engines for the Department’s fleet.

In a bizarre and tragic twist of fate, two flight crew members a veteran pilot and his cameraman were killed when their KNBC news helicopter crashed en route back to their Los Angeles base from their coverage of the 1,825 acre Cachuma fire on the 2nd of August 1977. Francis Gary Powers, the famed U-2 pilot shot down over the U.S.S.R. in 1960, died heroically while guiding the disabled helicopter away from children playing in a field in Sherman Oaks.

On 20 December 1977, 10,000 acre Honda fire on Vandenberg Air Force Base took the lives of four men: The base commander, Colonel Turner; the base Fire Chief, Billy Bell; and the base Assistant Fire Chief, Eugene Cooper; all died when flames fanned by hurricane force winds overtook them on a remote site near Space Launch Complex(SLC)-4. A fourth burn victim, Heavy Equipment Operator Clarence McCauley, received second and third degree burns when he too, was overtaken by the rapidly moving flame-front near SLC-5. He fought valiantly to survive his injuries, but died three weeks later at the burn clinic at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The Eighties

The 1980s were a decade of continued growth and expansion for the County and the Department. Chief Richard R. Peterson guided the process for acquisition of funding for state-of-the-art facilities at Gaviota(Station 18), Santa Ynez(Station 32) and Headquarters(Station 19). Station 18, largely funded by mitigation fees from the construction of Chevron Point Arguello/Gaviota Oil and Gas Project, evolved through a three-phase development from a small trailer, to a modular home, and finally to today’s modern, permanent facility. Crews were finally allowed to move into the Station 18 on February 15th 1989. The final cost for Station 18, including the fuel depot and driveways was $2,062,000 (the most expensive to date). The mid-phase modular structure was eventually relocated to Sisquoc to provide an upgraded facility for the personnel at Station 23 who had been operating out of an ancient, rented farmhouse and rickety equipment barn. Station 32’s original corrugated steel facility was built in 1948 for a cost of $12,695. In 1973, the construction section was transferred there from Station 31. Earlier that same year, the Hot Shot crew also moved into the aged facility. In 1990, the engine company moved into its new, $1.5 million quarters, at the Santa Ynez airport. The construction section moved into quarters behind Station 24 in Los Alamos and the Hot Shots were relocated to Station 24 in November 1990, just before being disbanded in 1991. Station 19, at a contract cost of $1,979,347, was opened on the 18th of January 1991. Ironically, this station was closed on November 20th 1995 as a result of the revenue losses incurred from litigation between the County and Chevron and its partners vis-a-vis the funding of Station 18.

The Hazardous Materials Response Team was created in 1984 resultant of State Senate Bill 618. The first members of our team were trained at the Casmalia Hazardous Waste Landfill and assigned to Station 31 in Buellton. The team was initially funded by mitigation fees from the Casmalia project. Subesequent to the closure of the Casmalia facility, funding has come directly from the Department’s budget. Today’s team is comprised of core personnel and equipment at Stations 31 in Buellton and 18 in Gaviota with trained support personnel located throughout the county. A large, fifth-wheel trailer located at Station 31 is thoroughly equipped and responds with Station 18’s air and lighting unit to hazardous materials incidents. Additionally, all firefighters are trained to First Responder Operational(FRO)level so they can provide valuable support at incidents.

The Nineties

The 1990s blew in hot and dry. Five years of drought and searing summer sundowner winds set the stage for the devastating Paint fire that began on the 27th of June 1990. In just three hours almost 5,000 acres were burned killing a 37-year old woman and destroying more than one-quarter billion dollars of property. 427 homes and 11 public buildings were lost in this violent firestorm. A known arson set fire, no criminal charges have been filed by the County due to insufficient evidence. Ironically, it was a suit filed against Santa Barbara County by a suspect in that case, that lead to his culpability for the fire and eventual civil judgment against him in November 2000. This judgment, for the amount of $2.8 million, was for suppression costs and damages to County properties resultant of this incident. Overshadowed by the media coverage of the Paint Incident was the fact that three post positions were lost in July 1990 when the contract for funding of crash/fire personnel from Santa Barbara was eliminated.

Two Santa Barbara County type-two strike teams were sent, in April of 1992, to the chaotic ‘Rodney King’ riots in Los Angeles. Responding fire apparatus were escorted to their assignments with police and/or National Guard protection. Hooked up with Los Angeles task forces, the teams were dispatched to fires where SWAT team escorts would secure scenes with weapons drawn before suppression efforts were undertaken.

Sheriff Jim Thomas assumed the title of Fire Chief on July 1st 1993, following the resignation of Chief Fraijo. This created a public safety dynasty affectionately referred to as the era of ‘Guns‘n Hoses.’ Chief Thomas’ reign included a hands-on visit to the 40,500 acre Marre fire as well as a ride-along stint as a firefighter to the Calabasas fire two weeks later which stubbornly burned for ten days in September/October of 1993. The Marre fire was fought in very steep terrain around Zaca Lake, largely by aircraft and hand crews. By it’s ninth day, October 4th, suppression costs had reached more than two million dollars per day. Shortly after this incident, Station 19, located on Cathedral Oaks Road below headquarters was closed resulting in the loss of three post positions, or nine personnel.

The administrative functions of the Department rapidly expanded in the nineties with the additions of the Hazardous Materials Unit and Environmental Health sections to the Training, Fire Prevention, and Office of Emergency Services.

In 1996, Chief Keith Simmons became the first person in the Department’s history to ascend through all of its ranks from fireman to fire chief. A 29-year veteran of the Department at the time of his appointment, Chief Simmons managed the a Department which had now grown to nearly 280 personnel with a budget of $24 million.

Station 12’s crews relocated to new quarters nestled in an avocado orchard on Calle Real on the 25th of April 1997. Prior to this time they had been located at the old Santa Barbara Airport station where for years they operated combined as an engine company and two crash/rescue units. (On March 1st 1983, Station 12’s crew stood by for the arrival of Air Force One which landed with President Ronald Reagan and another aircraft carrying Queen Elizabeth.) The crash/rescue apparatus were transferred across the street to the newly opened Santa Barbara City Station 8 in 1996.

The Department went airborne in 1998 with the acquisition of a Bell UH1H helicopter, designated 308, which provides suppression support and air reconnaissance for numerous projects including prescribed burn support, mapping, and training assignments. Ever progressive, the Department added a Water Rescue Program in 1998 and an Urban Search and Rescue Program in 1999.

The New Millennium

The Department’s current Chief, John M. Scherrei, took the reins from Chief Simmons on October 4th 1999. He inherited a 260 person department with a $24 million budget that is stretched effectively meet the ever-increasing safety needs of Santa Barbara County’s residents. The Department is now composed of three divisions: Administrative, Operations, and Fire Protection. These three divisions have numerous sections and units, each assigned to specific elements of an overall safety service objective for Santa Barbara County.

The Future

From a smattering of resources responding to a handful of calls in the early days, to the more than eight-thousand calls in a year the Santa Barbara County Fire Department has grown and continues to grow with the community it serves. The future of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department is vested in the collective contributions of its ever more sophisticated, well-educated and well-trained personnel and resources. The unseen challenges ahead will be effectively met as we continue to “answer the call” today, tomorrow and in the future.

Welcome to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department website where I hope you will find that we are here to serve you, the Santa Barbara County citizens, visitors, and businesses. We are fortunate to serve in a beautiful area that has been called the American Riviera and the most spectacular jewel of the California coast but even this comes with all the dangers and challenges every community faces today- fires, medical emergencies, disasters (man-made or natural). It is the call to duty that is the heartbeat of the department. Our mission is to serve by responding to that call for help, to educate and enforce fire safety codes and regulations. Our goal is to provide this in an efficient, courteous, reliable manner and we strive to do this with constant training, education, and accountability.

I am proud to be the 12th Fire Chief the department has had since its inception in 1926.

As we move into 2011, we find many of the same challenges in budget cuts and shortfalls that our whole nation is facing but we still manage to answer to our sworn duty. Future unexpected events may loom but we ‘train as though our lives depend on it’ as we fulfill our Mission Statement, follow our Vision, and exemplify our Core Values.

Michael W. Dyer
Fire Chief

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