For some time during the 2003 Cedar fire, a small fire station on Catalina Boulevard in Point Loma was one of only two stations in the entire city that were manned. Together, the two stations were tasked with responding to every emergency call in the city while the rest of the San Diego Fire Department was on the front lines of the raging wildfires.
At one point, Capt. George Uzdavines and his four-person crew rushed from Point Loma Station 22 to an emergency call in Kearny Mesa with their 13-year-old fire truck. On their way, they encountered a plane crash at Montgomery Field, stopped briefly to check on the pilot ” who was shaken but not seriously injured “” and then continued on to the original call. When they returned a while later, the plane was burned down to the frame.
Uzdavines, a Point Loma High School graduate, has worked at Station 22 for 24 of his 34 years on the job. When he first arrived, the fire truck that the company had was 22 years old. Fire officials traded that truck for an 18-year-old version a few years later, and over the years, the firefighters of Station 22 have made do with a series of older trucks.
Today, though, a half-million dollars worth of brand-new fire truck sits proudly in the driveway of the stationhouse.
The 56-year-old building is clean and well-maintained but very basic. Layers of paint coat the wooden kitchen cabinetry and a row of steel cooking pots hangs above the window over the sink. Outside the window, the green grass of the Point Loma Park and Recreation Center rolls down the hill into the trees and the southern slope of Point Loma facing Downtown San Diego.
Uzdavines and the three other members of C-Division have just started their shift on this day when the conversation is punctuated by the sounds of dishwashing and vacuuming as the crew settles in for their 24-hour shift.
Uzdavines says the 2007 KME Predator fire truck does not bring any new capabilities to the four-person station. It merely replaces the latest in a series of aging fire trucks that the station has made do with over the years.
“This truck has warning signals to alert the occupants of open doors, unfastened seatbelts and even engine problems,” says Uzdavines.
They are features one would expect to find on almost every modern car, but they represent technology the crews riding in Station 22’s trucks have apparently been doing without for years. The crew at Station 22 does spend quite a bit of time on the road.
Uzdavines says that since 1981, Station 22’s truck has always been staffed with at least one paramedic per shift, so the crew responds to medical calls as well as fire-related calls. A newer, more reliable truck with modern safety features will enhance the effectiveness and safety of the firefighters every day, he said.
A tone rings and the four firefighters reach for the pagers they all wear on their belts. A fire alarm has tripped somewhere on the High Tech High campus down at Liberty Station. Firefighter Kevin Wakashige climbs behind the wheel of Station 22’s new truck as firefighters Tim Olson and Matt Spicer climb into the back seat.
Uzdavines is seated in the passenger seat, looking at a computer screen as the crew pulls out and heads north down Catalina Boulevard with lights and sirens blaring.
During last fall’s Witch Creek fire, Uzdavines and the rest of Station 22’s personnel were moved forward onto the fire front. While 22’s firefighters and nearly all of the city’s crews and equipment fought the wildfires, the daunting task of covering the entire city once again briefly fell to a handful of fire trucks to cover the entire city.
“Is it reasonable? It was necessary,” said Lee Swanson, public information officer for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. “We felt we were able to reduce staffing to that level for short periods of time because people were told to curtail their normal activity. If there were fewer people on the roads, there was less chance of accident, for instance. Even at that, there were fires, there were gas main breaks, there were calls that had to be handled.”
If the number of brush fires already this spring are an indication, the approaching wildfire season may mean San Diego’s residents will have to rely on a handful of firefighters and the resources of a few fire stations for some period of time. And if the task again falls to the tiny station on Catalina Boulevard, the crews will have a modern firefighting weapon at their disposal.