In the 1980’s, EMS started integrating into many fire departments in the country/ Why not–it’s a force of personnel that are there for 24 hours and have many overlapping duties, such as rescue.

Integrating EMS

With the extra responsibility, fire departments started adding personnel to staff the ambulances. As communities became accustomed to the ambulance service, more and more citizens utilized the service to the point that the limited number of ambulances could not support the call volume.

Since payroll is the largest cost in paid municipal departments, in conjunction with incidents of fires decreasing, what better way to solve the shortcoming than to cross-train firefighters and place medical equipment on the fire engines. This would ensure medically trained personnel with medical equipment would arrive in the recommended 4-minute window without having to double or triple the number of staffed ambulances.

All Hazards Response

Since this medical addition, firefighters now respond to water rescues, lifting assistance, hazardous materials incidents, and technical rescue. Recently, firefighters are responding to active shooter events. 

All of these services require more training and addition of some equipment on the fire engine. Today, that same vehicle that only carried water and hose to fight fire now carries a variety of first response equipment, which should change the mindset from fire engine to emergency first response platform.

The driver sits in the driver’s seat of a fire engine, and the dashboard is recreated exactly as a dashboard in a fire engine looks, with all of the same controls.

“It’s really good training, very informative for the fire fighters who are not driving,” Assistant Chief Jason Baird said.

“It puts them in the seat, so they can learn first-hand what it’s like when they do become a driver.”

Scenarios play out in videos, and trainers could rewind the video and point out mistakes where necessary.  

Among the scenarios that drivers completed were how to approach an intersection with other emergency vehicles, dealing with drivers who are not paying attention, and a scenario in which a child runs into the street chasing a basketball.

“The child is in front of a parked car, so it’s a blind spot,” Baird said. “If you’re not paying close enough attention, you never see it coming.”

The station, located on Hasley Canyon Road and Gibraltar Lane in Castaic, will respond to emergency medical situations, structure fires, brush fires and hazardous materials incidents, said Assistant Fire Chief Gregory Hisel.

“With this location and its access to the freeways it'll be a quicker response, it’ll shorten the time to arrive on the incident.” Hisel said.

“When there’s a brush fire up the 5 freeway we will respond to that.”

The station will be staffed 24 hours a day, seven day a week.

Staff at shopfitting company The Alan Nuttall Partnership, who now use the factory building, have carried out a thorough investigation of the hidden fire base.

The room contained perfectly preserved uniforms, with the names of the wearers chalked above them. Scrawled names include 'I Silk', 'W Price' and 'A Round'.

Documents suggest the items date back to the early 1950s, when the local Co-op, which had its own fire brigade, operated from the building.

“This is such a large site that there are little corners that no-one goes into,” explains Matt Hornblower, Nuttall’s operations director.

“But recently we came in and had a good look around, and we still keep finding things that we didn’t know were here.

“The most impressive piece in there is a pump trailer, powered by a petrol or diesel engine.

"Still bright red, with ‘CWS DUDLEY’ lettered in gold on the front, it looks as though all it needs is a bit of a wipe down.

“There’s still air in its tyres and just a few spots of oil on the floor beneath.”

Hanging on one wall is a row of neatly rolled-up canvas hoses, along with a single gas mask.

The tradition stretches back to the beginning of organized firefighting when horses pulled pumpers, Johnson said.

At the end of a call, firefighters would have to wash the horse and the pumper before manually pushing the pumper back into the station to be ready for the next call, he said.

The new $630,000 truck was 95 percent funded by grants, Johnson said.

"We want to make the arrival of this truck special for the fire department as well as the community," he said.