50 Years for Captains Courageous

They were there when emergency calls came from street-corner alarm boxes. When clanging Red Cars sometimes moved faster than their clunky red trucks. When firemen were, well, men.

For half a century, Stancil Jones and John Petersen have fought fires in Los Angeles. And they’ve done it from the front of a hose, not from some desk back at the Fire Department headquarters.

Generations of younger firefighters have been trained by them. Rookies still look at them with a combination of curiosity and awe. Outsiders, believing this to be a young person’s profession, are stunned by them.

Jones, 72, is a captain at a sparkling new harbor-side fire station in San Pedro. He commands firefighters who use both a 99-foot fireboat and conventional fire engines.

Petersen, 71, is a captain at a musty but busy firehouse on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, a mile north of downtown Los Angeles. He commands firefighters who can find themselves answering a high-rise fire call in the morning and a hilltop brush fire in the afternoon.

The two men are both World War II Navy veterans who took the Fire Department entrance exam on July 21, 1948. Both were promoted to captain on the same day in 1961. Both can remember the details of fires they fought before most of their colleagues were born. Neither has any immediate plans to retire.

But that’s where the similarity ends for Los Angeles’ oldest smoke-eaters.

Jones is outgoing and eager to show a visitor around the gleaming fire station that includes an enclosed berth for its fireboat.

Petersen is quietly reserved, suggesting that the scariest moment of his long career might be talking to a reporter. Their observations, culled in separate interviews, paint an insider’s picture of changing life in Los Angeles.

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Jones: I went for an aeronautical engineering degree after the service. But before I graduated, a friend came by with a new car, new clothes and money in his pocket. He said he was on the Fire Department. I said, “Where do you sign up?”

Petersen: Back then, I had some friends on the job. They seemed to like it. So the first time I had a chance I took the Fire Department exam. I started work exactly on my 22nd birthday.

Jones: Back in the late ‘40s, L.A. had incinerators that smoked up the whole town. We didn’t have radios on firetrucks. We’d use hand signals to communicate. I was on a ladder truck at Florence and Western that went from the airport to Watts. If they didn’t need us they’d call one of the other stations along the way and when we passed by, they’d come out and signal to us with their arms to turn around.

Petersen: L.A. in the ‘40s was outstanding. It was beautiful. We didn’t have freeways--I can remember them building the Pasadena Freeway. But there wasn’t traffic congestion. The streetcars and public transportation pretty much handled it for people. We had more people back then on fire companies. Very rarely did we use breathing apparatus. We had some--they were in suitcases. We’d use them in basement fires. We had a lot more mattress fires in those days. And without a breathing apparatus, you took a beating. You’d eat a lot of smoke on a little mattress fire.

Jones: I’ve worked in South L.A., downtown L.A., West L.A. the harbor area. I came to the harbor in 1967 and stayed. They built this station in 1995. Before that, this fireboat was stationed on Terminal Island, under the Vincent Thomas Bridge. The Red Car line used to run right through where this station sits.

Petersen: I started out in 1948 in downtown L.A., Bunker Hill. Then Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, Vernon and Main, then 18 years at Station 10 over at Pico and Olive. It kind of broke my heart when they shipped me out of 10. It was horseplay--a firecracker set a locker in the station on fire. I got caught in the backwash and was moved out. I’ve been in Echo Park eight years.

Jones: Here at the harbor we go out on spills, rescues, ship fires, sinkings, harbor hazards. This fireboat is one year older than I am. Look at the six pumps in this boat. They were built in 1925 up in Vernon. They’re a work of art.

Petersen: In this area we have a lot of apartment fires. The last time I was in a smoke-filled building? The day before yesterday. I think we’re a little more aware of things now than we used to be. But hazardous materials are more common. Before, they weren’t marked and you didn’t always know what to expect. But there weren’t as many hazardous materials back then.

Jones: I was in Wilmington talking to one of my superiors on the phone when the Sansinena [tanker] blew up in the harbor in 1976. I heard the boom. It broke out all the windows along Avalon Boulevard up where we were. The ship’s superstructure landed on oil pipes on land. All we could do is stop the rolling wave of fire headed toward the San Pedro Boat Works. It took two days to find out that the superstructure ruptured the underground pipes when it landed.

Petersen: I missed the [1986] library fire, the First Interstate fire and the last riot. I was in the Watts riots, though. I was there when a wall caved in and killed a firefighter around 120th and Central. They started shooting at us at a fire right up the street at 103rd. We dove down. I was a captain in the Bel-Air fire. At a manufacturing plant fire one time I opened a door to nowhere and went down on my head on concrete. I broke my teeth and got lots of chips in my back.

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Jones, a Corona del Mar resident, marked his 50th year on the job Nov. 1. Petersen, of San Clemente, celebrates his Dec. 13.

Los Angeles fire officials say there is no mandatory retirement age for firefighters. But each of the 3,100 uniformed personnel at the city’s 102 stations are required to undergo a full medical exam every two years to make certain the can handle the rigors of the job.

“They make a lifelong commitment when they come on the job to take care of themselves,” said Capt. Joe Foley, commander of the Fire Department’s medical liaison office. “This manifests itself in these two men. Longevity in the department is what these two men got out of it.”

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Jones: I’ve seen changes over the years in the way we fight fires. In the past, we didn’t have smoke detectors or automatic alarms. In the ‘40s, we collapsed one building in downtown L.A. by putting so much water on it and killed a fireman. We know better now. We learn as we go along. We’ve absorbed women in the department. We have a woman here. We accept her and like her and have a lot of fun.

Petersen: The fires truly haven’t changed that much. Sprinklers have helped. They cut down on the size of fires and the loss of life. The department has changed. Being semi-military and all men, we let our hair down in the past. Having women in the department has made gentlemen out of us--some of us.

Jones: I’m the father of 13. Two of my sons are firemen. Dory is a captain in Westchester. Bill is a firefighter in San Pedro. I think my youngest, a 15-year-old, might like to go into firefighting. I’ve always said it would be great if my six daughters could marry men like the guys I work with. One of [my daughters] is married to a pilot of this fireboat who works another shift.

Petersen: None of my three kids followed me into the Fire Department. My oldest boy, John, is dean of science at Wayne State University. My youngest son, Christopher, is a professor of marine biology at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. My daughter Kathleen is a junior high teacher in Davis. Three of my six grandkids are in college. I didn’t go to college myself, but I encouraged them to. But I said, “Don’t let education keep you from doing what you want to do.”

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The pair’s savvy shows on the fire line, said other firefighters who appreciate their combined century of service.

“Working with him gives you a feeling of security,” said firefighter Dave Moorman, a nine-year veteran who works with Petersen.

Engineer Pete Goff said Petersen “knows where the fire will be in five minutes--he’s been to 100 of them just like it.”

Engineer Jack Simmons, who has spent the past dozen years with Jones, said Jones teaches compassion. “He comes back to the station and makes phone calls to the spouses of accident victims,” Simmons said.

Firefighter-paramedic Bob Bribiesea said that at age 46 he was considered “the old man” at his previous station. Transferring to Jones’ station changed that.

“It’s great,” said Bribiesea, “working at a place where I’M the kid again.”

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Jones: I never looked at working for 50 years. But I like the action of this job. I’m the kind of person who likes elk hunting and deep-sea fishing. As long as my body holds up, I’ll keep working. If I become a liability, I’ll quit.

Petersen: This is a young man’s job, but I can do it. After 20 years I could have retired on 40% pension. I’ve been maxed out at 70% for 30 years now, so that’s not my incentive to stay. It’s that I enjoy the job. Enjoying your work for 50 years--you can’t buy that.