Day 26 April 7, 2009

I checked out of the Day’s Inn in Tempe around 0630 hours. Staying on their new LRT route was not a problem at all. The wheels on the trains were very quiet and they don’t do any whistles or tones like they do in Minneapolis. All I could here when one went by was a very dull roar, something akin to a very distant roar of a 747 aircraft.

Phoenix had a couple working incidents that I heard last night before I went to sleep. On one they sent the full 1st alarm response to a reported fire in an apartment building. They sure send a lot of miscellaneous equipment to a full first alarm. When they had a reported plane crash (it turned out not to be an actual crash) they sent a ton of Haz Mat apparatus from all over the area, a Squad, two ambulances, two EMS supervisors, a Utility, a Rehab unit, Foam trucks, a tanker, and I can’t remember what all.

Because it’s so busy here, the alarms are given out very fast as air time is limited. I need a voice-activated recorder to get it all, but the recorder better activate awfully fast. I didn’t monitor over night at all. It’s just way too busy and I’ve explained I don’t get up when something happens like I used to. Phoenix dispatches for almost everybody except for Mesa, Gilbert, Rural Metro and Chandler(?). So the dispatch channel often gives out run after run after run with little pause between.

I took the relatively new 101 (Price) Freeway south to the 202 freeway west and quickly got connected with I-10 headed towards El Paso. I made good time to Tucson, but the constant freeway construction through downtown Tucson is just a little too much. The I-10 through downtown Tucson has been under construction forever (as long as I can remember anyway), Just once I’d like to come through Tucson and not have construction zones with only two lanes of traffic.

The rest of the 400-mile plus drive to El Paso was uneventful. When I stopped at a rest stop on a hill overlooking Las Cruces I took a few photos of the spectacular view. I stopped to get gas as I approached El Paso and it just happened to be the same truck stop on the outskirts of El Paso that I stopped at on the way through earlier on the trip. If you remember, there were two fire trucks parked in the station lot. When I pulled into the truck stop this time, there were no fire trucks. But after filling the car with gas, a fire truck suddenly appeared at the other end of the lot- parked. It was a totally different rig from the other two I shot on the way out west. Maybe I should just schedule my trip at this truck stop and wait for all the rigs to show up.

I forgot that you lose an hour coming into El Paso. I thought I’d arrive around 1300 hours, but it actually was 1400 hours. I took a few photos out the window of the car along I-10 as I neared downtown El Paso (looking across the Rio Grande River into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico). That’s the city where the police chief was forced to resign by drug traffickers who promised to kill a police officer every day that the police chief was still in office.

I got off I-10 just before downtown and started visiting El Paso fire stations. My first stop was Station 3 and the engine and truck were gone. I stopped at Station 10 and got a photo of “Pumper 10” and met some nice firefighters. El Paso has 32 ”Pumpers”, five Ladder Trucks, eight Quints, 21 ambulances (“Rescues”) and a number of specialized vehicles. They also provide the fire protection at El Paso International Airport.

My next stop was at Station 7. Quint 7 was out with the aerial ladder fully extended horizontal as the firefighters were working on it. I heard a diesel start up and ran around the Quint as “Pumper 7” was going out on a run (a medical, I was told). I got a shot as they pulled out the door of the station. I can’t monitor El Paso’s EDAC’s radio system or I’d have heard them dispatched on my scanner.A very friendly firefighter from Quint 7 told me that I should go by the EPFD headquarters on Montana Avenue and see the old rigs on display there. I told him I might just head there next, but I thought they might be closed. He told me they were open until 1700 hours. Their headquarters is an old car dealership building that the EPFD purchased six or seven years ago. The car display area is their reception area with two old pieces of apparatus on display, a 1930 ALF pumper and a 1898 American Fire Extinguisher Co. steamer. The service area of the old dealership is their fire department shops (they added some taller bays) and the rest of the huge building is their fire headquarters.

I checked at the front reception counter about getting a list of fire apparatus. I was told to go next door to the fire prevention section and ask for Captain Kebschull. I asked for the captain and a nice EPFD firefighter that was on light-duty (in a foot cast) found him and Captain Kebschull was very nice and ran me off two lists. When I studied the lists later I found out neither one had the manufacturer’s serial numbers, but the lists had all the VIN numbers. Oh well. The captain was extremely nice and walked me around the shop area and I took a number of photos of EPFD apparatus. When I had arrived, Quint 16 was parked out front and when I left Engine 11’s strange looking pumper was parked out front.

I’m glad I went to their headquarters as I found some motels I hadn’t been aware of along Montana Avenue, not far from the airport of I-10. I found a very nice Quality Inn nearby with lotsa cable channels (100+), a fridge, a very comfortable easy chair, a desk, a microwave and free wi-fi (although I’ve been using my cell phone 95% of the time for internet). I’m a little worried about these unprotected motel Wi-Fi systems). The only problem in staying in El Paso is that I don’t have any idea what’s going on. There could be a four-alarm fire going on while I’m here and I wouldn’t know about it- unless it made the national pager.

Wow! Just after I finished this report I went out to get some dinner. As I backed away from the motel, I saw this humungeous black loom-up that looked b very close. I ran back into the room to get my digital camera in case it was close. As I was exiting the motel, I could see where the smoke was coming from- across the Rio Grande River, well into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Now, I consider myself a little adventurous, but not THAT adventurous that I’d go into a very tough area of Mexico to chase a fire. Call me a “Chicken” if you will, but at least I’ll be around to be called something other than dead! I took a photo of the smoke, but I’d already downloaded today’s photos. I’ll send it along in tomorrows report.