Early Firefighting in the Crescenta Valley

As we head into another fire season (fire season now seems to be year-round!), let’s look back at early methods of firefighting locally. In the 1800s, fires raged for months at a time through the San Gabriel Mountains, and the only firefighting efforts were to keep the fire from creeping down into the inhabited areas of the valley. In Santa Ana wind conditions that was impossible, and more than once wildfires swept across our valley. The few residents here could only hastily dig firebreaks around their homes then stand their ground as the flames roared closer. There were no hoses, so they simply threw dirt onto the fire with shovels or beat at the flames with wet gunnysacks. That must have taken incredible courage and we can be sure it resulted in serious burns.

As the community began to build in the teens and ’20s, a trained volunteer force was organized. A rich resident, Harvey Bissell of the Bissell Vacuum Cleaner fortune, funded a fire engine. It was housed in a garage at the fire captain’s residence on Hermosa Avenue, along with a bell to summon the volunteers. This was good for structure fires as it could put a few hundred gallons of water onto a fire from the tank of the fire truck.

But wildfires that spread across a wide front needed hundreds of men on the ground. Recruiting that many volunteers required extreme methods. Road blocks were set up on the highways and any able-bodied men who were stopped were pressured hard to “volunteer” to join the fire crews. Occasionally a truck was sent to the plaza (today’s Olvera Street) in downtown LA where there were always out-of-work men to be found. There were no water drops from aircraft. These brave men had to hike to the advancing edge of the fire and fight on foot with the old “shovel and gunnysack” methods. The volunteers were paid 35 cents an hour for this dangerous work.

In 1924, the County organized professional firefighting units for the Crescenta Valley. Fire stations were built at various points in the valley. In La Crescenta, Fire Station 19 was built on Foothill Boulevard east of Rosemont Avenue, next to St. Luke’s Church. That stone building is still there and is today a youth house, appropriately named “The Fire House.” Another was in the San Rafael hills above La Cañada, just off Chevy Chase. In the 1970s it was adapted into a private residence, which whimsically embraced a firehouse motif. The fence-line sports sculpted flames and firefighting equipment and “Old Station 28” adorns the gate.

Two forestry department stations were on Foothill as well for coordinating back-country wildfires. One was at the corner of Foothill and Georgian Road in La Cañada. That old stone firehouse is still there, now incorporated into the modern Station 82. The other was in a storefront in the 2900 block of Foothill. A couple of weeks ago, the Then and Now feature in this paper showed that La Crescenta Forestry Dept. station with several motorcycles parked out front.

These motorcycles were perhaps the most exciting part of pre-WWII wildfire fighting. These sleek green motorbikes were used by the “smoke-chasers.” Fire lookout towers located on peaks (Mt. Lukens had one) could call in a sighting of smoke in the distance. It was the smoke-chaser’s job to ride the mountain trails and mining roads until he could pinpoint the fire’s location, then race back to find a phone to call it in. By the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) had camps in the Crescenta-Cañada valleys, and a truckload of those young men could be dispatched to fight the back-country fire.

Post-war, two other back-country wildfire methods were used. In the ’50s massive firebreaks were bulldozed along the mountain ridges, but they ultimately proved less effective and that technique was abandoned. The more effective method was the adaptation of surplus WWII bombers to drop water onto the wildfires and that, of course, led to the methods that we have today.

In the face of expanding fire danger, future firefighting techniques will continue to evolve as they always have.