By Lori Consalvo
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
MOUNT BALDY, Calif. — A pilot, a waitress, an engineer, a police dispatcher, a student and an insurance agent - these are just some of the people who make up the Mount Baldy Fire Department.
Since its conception in 1953, the department has been made up of volunteers, which means the 20 men and women who fight fires, attend to traffic accidents and help with medical conditions do so after working long hours in their full-time occupations.
“As a little kid, I always wanted to be a firefighter,” Jimmy Bullis said.
The 52-year-old Mount Baldy resident has been a part of the volunteer team for about three years. But he pays the bills through his job as a freelance artist, doing airbrush artwork, designs, murals and sculptures.
He became involved in the department shortly after the 2003 Grand Prix Fire, when he witnessed firsthand what the volunteers needed to do to help save their community.
“I wanted to be a firefighter because I wanted to learn not to be afraid of it,” Bullis said.
The volunteer firefighters in Mount Baldy are all county- approved. Like full-time firefighters, they too must go through medical training and background checks.
By community rules, volunteers must first be residents of Mount Baldy. Then they can apply for the position and potentially be voted in.
The group meets every first and third Thursday of the month and donates more than 4,500 hours to responses, training and administration, which is equivalent to the work of three full-time firefighters.
“The whole experience is a positive thing,” Bullis said.
As firefighters, Bullis and the rest of the volunteers are at the mercy of their community. They each carry a pager for 24-hour contact.
“We do get calls in the middle of the night,” Bullis said. “There are some days when you just don’t want to go. Volunteers get no pay.”
According to the department’s Web site, “no member of the department draws any compensation for services rendered except the satisfaction of lending a helping hand and thanks.”
The department operates strictly on donations and fundraising activities, like the annual Steak Fry this past weekend.
While they are active throughout the year, the firefighters all agree that winter is their busiest season, which consists mostly of medical problems and traffic accidents.
Basically, they are trained as first responders.
“Fortunately we don’t have many fires here,” said another volunteer, Gordon Greene, who is a 67-year-old retiree.
Before retiring, Greene said he owned an RV supply store in Ontario and worked 12-hour days.
But nothing has compared to strapping on his protective gear to fight some of the largest fires that threatened the mountain community in the past 30 years.
“The Thunder Fire was the worst. That came down on both sides of the mountain,” Greene said. “With the Grand Prix Fire, we were watching the fire jump the road.”
During his 25 years as a firefighter, Greene has seen many people come and go as volunteers.
“This is a bunch of good guys,” he said. “Kind of a younger generation from when I first started.”
The ages, like the full-time jobs, vary. Within the current group, the youngest volunteer is 20 years old, while the oldest is 78.
About eight volunteers serve as the search-and-rescue team.
“There is a lot of qualification and trust these guys go through,” said John Klopp, who has been a volunteer for 13 years and part of the search-and-rescue team for eight.
Klopp, 59, designs electronic cooling systems for military aircraft and vehicles. But in his occasional free time, he scales the side of the mountain during rescue attempts.
In addition to the biweekly meetings, the search-and-rescue team trains once a month.
Klopp said Mount Baldy firefighters understand the dangers involved in volunteering and the time it demands.
“We know we have got to be able to take care of business,” Klopp said. “If you’re on the mountain, you’re expected to (help).”
But their efforts do not go unnoticed.
“One of the best feelings I can recall having was fighting one of the fires up here,” Klopp said. “And then looking up to see most of the residents standing there giving us an applause.”