La Honda Fire Brigade

Our Technical Rescue Trailer Needs Your Help

Most of our approximately 400 call outs per year are due to traffic accidents, medical emergencies or situations that involve a rescue of a person or an animal. These rescues often require special equipment. This equipment is stored and carried to the incident in our Technical Rescue Trailer. This trailer is very old and in poor condition. Funds raised in this year's Coastside Gives campaign will be used to replace the Technical Rescue Trailer that is in a state of disrepair, and refresh lifesaving equipment in the trailer that is utilized for rescue incidents, large animal rescue, confined space rescue, and structural collapse.

 Who Are We

Our mission is to protect lives, property, and the environment through education, prevention, training, and emergency response. We serve as a dedicated team committed to our community’s safety. We uphold integrity, teamwork, and diversity, valuing ourvolunteers and our community as our greatest assets. We strive to provide high quality service, maintain a safe working environment, embrace innovation, and honor our rich traditions while ensuring community needs are met.

La Honda Fire Brigade is an all-volunteer fire department, serving the community of La Honda and all surrounding areas of the San Mateo South Coast since 1953. Our volunteers have received the same training as a professional firefighter and most have received Emergency Medical Training. They face the same dangers as a professional firefighter. Yet, these men and women all have jobs in addition to their volunteer duties.

In addition to our primary duties of responding to fires, traffic accidents, medical emergencies and rescues, our firefighters are out all day and night during storms, cutting trees, helping PG&E restore power, clearing culverts, or whatever else is needed to keep our residents safe and accessible.

In addition, the La Honda Fire Brigade sponsors South Coast CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and SC4ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services).  Since the CZU Fire in 2020, our CERT and ARES teams have been activated 13 times.  An activation means that these volunteers staff the Operation Center at the Fire Brigade and if necessary, the Temporary Evacuation Point in Pescadero, 24 hours a day until the incident is over.  All but 5 of these activations have lasted multiple days; CZU activation was for 10 days.  The La Honda Fire Brigade is the only source of funding for South Coast CERT.

The Brigade also provides many emergency preparedness programs in the community, like the chipper programs and educational activities.

The impact of the La Honda Fire Brigade on the community is critical. Our volunteer firefighters were first on the scene at one of the first CZU fires in our area. They hiked miles, with water on their backs, and held that fire line through the night of August 16 2020. They remained for the next 10 days, keeping that fire from crossing the line into our communities.

In addition, the impact of the La Honda Fire Brigade includes the following:

•Reduces fire/EMS response in La Honda by 10 - 15 minutes.
•Contributes seven pieces of fire equipment to a response, including a Type I Engine (Structural), a Type III Engine (Wildland), a Type I Water Tender, a Rescue that is transport capable, a Utility truck, our new Type 6 Wildland Engine and our new Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV).
•It is a matter of life and death!! When a person suffers from cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately getting CPR from someone nearby. Almost 90 percent of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die. CPR, especially if performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, can double, or triple a person's chance of survival according to the American Heart Association. Most of our firefighters are emergency medical technicians and all of them are trained in CPR and defibrillation. Responding to medical emergencies is important and makes up approximately 80% of the responses of the La Honda Fire Brigade.
•A local station is critical to keeping a small fire contained. Small fires very quickly develop into huge fires. Reduced response time is critical in containing small fires.

Please help us restore our Technical Rescue Trailer, which is critical to rescuing animals or people from life-threatening situations and in the case of a large scale earthquake will be crucial in saving trapped victims.

Testimonials

"I owe the La Honda Fire Brigade more than I can express. They saved my home, my property and my animals from almost certain destruction if the CZU Fire was able to cross over Old Haul Rd." (Resident in Portola Heights)

"Thank you for saving Loma Mar." Michelle Brooks

"You are all true heroes" O'Conner Family

Words cannot express how thankful I am" Vicki Rupe