A day in the life of Big Bear Fire Department

In between the last two major winter storms, this reporter was able to take a ride along with the Big Bear Fire Department. This is the story of a typical Winter Day from the perspective of our local firefighters.

It was sunny but cold when I got to the fire station. The station was abuzz with firefighters preparing their gear for the day. I got a quick tour of the fire station before the first tones went off. It was going to be a very busy day in Big Bear, with the thousands of local residents and visitors enjoying the fresh mountain snow.

It wasn’t long before the station lights turned on and a dispatch came out for a structure fire reported Big Bear Lake. The crew geared up and hustled to their fire engine. We get on scene to smoke coming from chimney with no extension to interior.

After a short time on-scene fire personal deem it’s a flue fire and extinguished it quickly. This is a very common call for the fire department, but each “chimney burnout” is treated as a structure fire until it is determined to be safe.

Back to the station we go. By this time everyone is hungry for breakfast and looking forward to eating before the next call. We start to make pancakes bit before we can take a bite, and tones go off again. “CPR in progress” off we go code 3 down the Boulevard. With very few cars moving out of our way, and two loud siren blaring vehicles behind them, racing to save a life, people seemed oblivious as we tried to navigate through the heavy traffic. We make it to the call and it’s a full-on emergency situation. Fire fighters revive a patient who was unconscious and not breathing. On a typical day, an ambulance and engine would be dispatched to this type of call. But this is not a typical day – it’s one of the busiest of the year. All other emergency resources in the area are committed to other incidents and a call for “Level Zero” (no available resources) goes out. We take this patient to a near-by hospital to continue treatment.

Just pulling into the apparatus bay the third call goes out. Still no breakfast. “Possible Fracture”. With two ski resorts, and thousands of visitors playing in the snow, there will be lots of calls for snow-related injuries. Once again, we hustle down the Boulevard. Once again despite emergency lights and sirens, and honking of the airhorn to get drivers to move over to the right, drivers are not following the rules of the road and block access for emergency personal to get to the call quickly and safely. The ambulance transports the patient to a local hospital and the engine heads back to the station.

Just as we walk into the station, the next call comes out. A pancake would taste really good right now, but there is another “Possible Fracture”. The patient is transported like the others, with care and compassion, and without incident. When returning to the station another call for service comes out. This time, it’s an “Ice Rescue.”

We arrive on scene to find dozens of snow players standing on half frozen lake ice. Fire crews get on intercom and make contact with the patrons and they all leave the frozen lake area. Fortunately nobody fell through the ice this time.

Now it’s almost 1:00 pm and it’s lunchtime, and we start to discuss what everyone would like to eat. Just as we pick what we want another call comes out, another “Possible Fracture”. We quickly arrive on-scene and the patient declines transport, and we head back to the station.

We walk in take a quick bathroom break when the tones ring out again. This time for “Chest Pain”. Luckily being in quarters at the station and the call only being a short distance from there, the patient, who was having a possible heart attack, got quick and proper emergency care and was flown to a Cardiac Recieving facility.

Call after call came out today, causing Big Bear Fire to go Level Zero 4 times. The importance of staffing each station with adequate resources is definitely needed. Just one more emergency call during this already busy time could have changed the outcome of any one of these critical patients.

By 4:30 pm. we finally got a break to sit down and eat after running calls non-stop since 8:00 am. As we finish our last bite, the tones ring out again. A “Fall Victim”, another common incident in icy conditions. We head out towards the Boulevard like any other calls. There is so much traffic this time that we decided to take side roads and use oncoming traffic lanes to make it on scene.

We get back to the station and my day has come to an end, but the firefighter’s is only half over. The Big Bear Firefighters were absolute heroes today. Of course when you ask them, they proudly say we are just doing the job that we love.

The community needs our fire personal and we need our stations to remain open and properly staffed. Each year, Big Bear sees more and more visitors, and with that, an increase in the number of emergency calls. And it’s not just in the winter. Big Bear is truly a year round destination and the first responders need to also be in sync with the continuous influx of visitors.