Day 11- March 23, 2009

I forgot to mention in yesterdays report that I did not find a more suitable hotel in my travels where I could monitor San Francisco. I also did not come across a Radio Shack store to purchase new ear piece to plug into my Pro-96. Last night Alameda County had a fire that I never got an address on. Alameda County uses a crappy four-digit numbering system, similar to the one Hennepin County used for years. It’s like “3471, 3411, 3423, 3491 responding to” which doesn’t tell you much. I haven’t bothered yet to check a map to see where the action in Alameda County is. Oakland uses this same four-digit system and that really sucks. I’m not going over in that area anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

I apparently missed a fire in San Jose this morning on Park Avenue before 0700 hours. I might have been showering at the time and not near the scanner. I got up and looked out the window to see fairly sunny skies. I left the motel around 0830 hours in 45-degree weather. I stopped at a McDonalds just down the road from the motel and had breakfast. I got on the southbound 101 and headed to San Jose. On the way down Alameda County had another working fire at 333 Western (in some city) on the other side of the bay.

On the way down the 101 near Redwood City, I suddenly started picking up San Francisco trunked fire radio transmissions. Looking at a map. It would seem that there are some areas where the SFFD signal travels over the bay waters and can be received in areas that stick out further east (which are not blocked my the huge hill in South San Francisco. Next time I’m in the area, I will try staying down in that area. It might just be the answer to receiving San Francisco without being in San Francisco.

I got off the 101 near San Jose Station 1 as I wanted to get a photo of their new TDA built by Crimson. They just received two TDA’s, but the other one is not in service yet as they have to alter the station door to fit the rig in. Just before I arrived Ladder 1 got a run on 23rd Street, I believe for a fire alarm sounding. I went to Station 1 as I figured they’d be returning soon. New Station 1, built about eight years ago, is very nice. It stands directly north of old Station 1, which the local fire museum griuo is trying to acquire from the city to use as a fire museum. I was greeted by a very nice firefighter who walked me around their new station. I took a photo of their new Command rig- a former bookmobile, which the department totally rebuilt. Engine 1 was out back being washed by the driver. When Ladder 1 returned, they were kind enough to back it up out on the back apron so that I could get a nice sunny shot. They love their new TDA.

I headed to the SJFD shops to see my old friend Tom Naslon (assistant foreman). When I arrived at he shop I didn’t see any of the normal fire apparatus that is usually parked everywhere - for good reason. The shop had moved to the city municipal garage service area about a year ago. There weren’t any rigs out training either, which seemed strange. A nice young firefighter, that I ran into, took the time to walk me around the training area so that I could get a few rig shots and he also took me into the old shops area, where they now store specialized apparatus. Parked there was a used Crown/Maxim TDA that the department had recently purchased for the training tower so they could teach their firefighters how to till.

I asked him if he knew where the Crown TDA came from and he didn’t know. I found the Crown plate and recorded the serial # (F-1738), which I checked back at the motel and that rig was sold to the San Diego FD in 1975. I asked the firefighter how to get to the municipal shops. He gave me great directions and I was there in a few minutes. When I entered the fire department section and asked for Tom Naslon. I was told that he retired a few years back. I met Tony, his replacement, who very kindly printed me a current apparatus roster. He also told me that they have six new Spartan/HiTech engines, four of them out in the yard.

He gave me permission to take all the photos I wanted and I spent quite awhile out in the yard getting photos and info off the new rigs (as they were not on the printed roster yet). I also got to meet Don, the new foreman, who helped me find the serial numbers on the new rigs. As it was 1130 hours already, I called Phil Reid to ask him if we could together tomorrow rather than today, as I was at least 50 minutes away and really wanted to hit some more departments in this area. I’m looking forward to meeting Phil in San Francisco tomorrow. After I finished at the shops I headed up to the City of Santa Clara.

While I was driving down the street I happened to glance down a side street and see an engine company. I turned around and found Santa Clara Engine 3 parked by a hospital. I got photos of the offices side. I drove by Santa Clara Station 1 and it was empty. I headed up to Station 2, which is also has their training tower. Engine 7 was parked in the back corner of the lot next to a fence (no photo possible). Their station had been rebuilt a few years back and I got a station shot. I headed to Station 9 and stopped in when I saw a heavy-rescue-type vehicle in one of the bays.

I’d never been in Station 9 before. It is actually an old warehouse building that the department had purchased to store some of their equipment and supplies in. I met two extremely nice firefighters who were very interested in the fire service. The captain has teams of draft horses that he uses to pull steamers in area parades. He actually owns some old horse-drawn carts that he is trying to rebuild to look authentic to the period of time they were used. He showed me some photos of a couple of his teams pulling carts and steamers.

They offered to pull out the engine and the haz mat truck for photos. In the back end of the warehouse (station) they have an 800 series ALF (old SCFD), an Ahrens Fox engine, and a unbelievably cherry 1912 Seagrave air cooled motorized chemical truck, which looked very similar to the one Minneapolis got in 1911 (for Hose 9), but which they traded into Seagrave for a 1912 water cooled model (the air cooled engine kept overheating). I could have spent hours talking to these two firefighters. I told them I have the Seagrave painters list on my computer and could check the serial number on their old Seagrave for them. There is no plate on the rig at all. After I got back to the motel, I looked at the Seagrave Painters Log that Bill Friedrich had sent me on PDF and it is a 1913 Seagrave Motorized Chemical Wagon, Seagrave #8666, painted “Battleship Gray” on April 17th of 1913. I also called Station 9 tonight to give Captain Conner that info. He was very appreciative and found the color very interesting. Thanks a lot Bill. You helped make some Santa Clara firefighters very happy!

I headed to nearby Sunnyvale Station 2, also the departments training area and tower. I’ve always had good luck finding companies out training there, but not today. The reason why most of the departments are not doing firefighter training, so I was told, is that it is that it is the time of year that California firefighters renew their EMT and paramedic training certificates, Most fires departments in the state are doing their re-certification training right now.

Sunnyvale Squad 2 and Engine 2 (one of four new Ferrara Igniter pumpers) were parked outside, so I got some decent shots of them. Two huge overhead traffic signal poles blocked the pump panel side of the engine. I met some very friendly firefighters there also. When I asked about automatic aid in the area, they told me it was almost non-existent in Santa Clara County. Sunnyvale does a little auto-aid with a couple Santa Clara County unincorporated areas, but that’s it. The firefighter was almost embarrassed admitting that Santa Clara County is way behind other areas that have “seemless” coverage.

I headed to Mountain View Station 4, which also has a training tower. It was the same story there too. Nobody doing any training! I didn’t stop as the station, as the apparatus pad in front of the station is shaded unevenly with trees. I drove over to El Camino Real to see if I could find a Radio Shack store on the way back up towards “South City”. I finally found one in the area of Mountain View that I used to stay in when visiting the area. I still love the area from Palo Alto down into Mountain View the best. I would be very comfortable and feel safe living in this area.

The Radio Shack people told me that they no longer carry any mono ear-phone pieces anymore. I was rather disappointed. I thought about the “Fry Electronic Stores” that they have in this area that maybe I can check out. As I remember them, they have almost everything. I’ll see if I can find a Fry store tomorrow. In the same mall as the Radio Shack, I found a store that sold area street maps. The “ol’ skinflint” here bought two new maps of the area, as the ones that I am currently using were printed in “1990”. I am missing almost all of the streets in the areas where some of the newer stations have been built.

Regarding maps. I received an e-mail from one of you last night asking me why I don’t use a GPS device in my car. So far, I haven’t been able to find one of these devices that can store all of the information that I’d like to put into it. Most of these dash-board devices can only store so many addresses. I have been using the older DeLorme Street Atlas USA computer mapping program for years and have every major metropolitan areas fire stations plotted by company type and number on about a dozen map files that cover the entire USA. I have used this on a few trips as I have a GPS system for that program that works on my laptop in the car. It works great, but it is awkward using a PC in the front seat of the car and it can sometimes be very hard to see with all the light and reflections in an automobile. It is great if you have two people and one can hold the laptop. I’ve used my PC with the GPS unit on some of my trips where Karyle has been doing some of the driving. It works like a champ! I can tell her to turn right at the next intersection. She’ll ask me the street name and I’ll tell her it doesn’t matter because we’re where we’re supposed to be.

Yes, the GPS dash-mounts would help me find an address- like yesterday when I was trying to find the working fire in the Millbrae hills. But I’d like one where I could program all the thousands and thousands of fire stations I have already plotted using the DeLorme program into. San Fran-San-Jose-Oakland in itself must have over a thousand fire stations in its greater metropolitan area. I’ve always thought that the perfect buffing trip would involve a small RV with a computer and GPS program and comfortable room for four or five buffs to really buff it up right.

That’s it for today folks. Time to download some of today’s photos.