Altadena : Firehouse Hit by Thieves

Thieves stole two cable converter boxes from an Altadena fire station last week while firefighters were busy battling the fire in the San Gabriels.

They entered the empty station house at 2521 El Molino Ave. sometime before 1:30 p.m. Oct. 27 and made off with two converter boxes, worth $250 each, from the kitchen and the recreation room, said Gary Marshall, a firefighter at Station 11, whose crew was among the first to be sent out near Eaton Canyon to fight the fires.

“It’s sad,” said Rick Altert, the station’s engineer. “We are out there helping people and somebody robbed us.”

“It looked like they were going to come back for the TVs because the cords were disconnected,” Marshall said.

An off-duty fireman came by the station and saw two men at different times inside the station house and asked them to leave. He didn’t suspect anything at the time, Marshall said.

“The door was locked but maybe it wasn’t shut all the way,” Marshall said.

The theft was not discovered until midnight, when the firefighters returned after battling flames for more than 16 hours.

Crown Cable replaced the stolen converter boxes two days ago free of charge, said a spokesman for the company. The firefighters had chipped in to pay for the converter boxes and cable service.