As I was perusing Facebook recently, a conversation popped up about Engine 51 and it’s time in Yosemite. There was a lot of information about it, and most of it correct. There were a couple folks who were quite stubborn in their erred information. Several subject matter experts through in good information. This was my response.
A little Engine 7/Engine 51 action while in Yosemite. The Engine stayed very busy. Toned out at the same time as NPS Fire, the Engine responded to an average of 120 calls for service each year.
The most frequent calls were landing zone (LZ) coverage and “burnt toast” calls (more later).
In the summer months, E-7 often responded to the Ahwahnee Meadow (and occasionally El Cap Meadow) for the park assigned NPS Helicopter 551, or CHP 40 out of Fresno, for back country or technical rescues and medicals. Those calls often involved a second ship coming into the park, a medical helicopter, to transport those injured and other medical issues to a hospital in Modesto, Calif. The E-7 crew has handled LZ coverage for as many as 7 helicopters at once on the ground. LZ calls occasionally occurred multiple times a day. Since E-7’s firefighters were long term full time employees in their own jobs, business interruptions were common. Both the Curry Company and Delaware North understood and accepted it as a normal business practice—and in fact was a point of pride and success for the executive management teams.
More often in the winter when windows and doors are closed up, and although the nickname itself was only accurate a small percentage of the time, the other prevalent response was nicknamed the “burnt toast call.” The company employed some awesome chefs. Yet in housing buildings with shared kitchens, a small percentage of non-chef employees were not always as safety conscious in the dorms’ shared kitchens.
In all seriousness, at all times of day, these calls got jumped on fast because of the huge potential of loss in residents lives and structures. All firefighters lived in or adjacent to these residential areas, and when toned out to respond would pass by a location while running to the firehouse and could give an initial size up.
The Engine responded to all the other types of calls too, traffic collisions, fire alarm activations, spills, and such with an average of at least one working structure fire a year. Although some firefighters were EMTs, a pure medical call was not in its normal response protocols.
Over its history, the crew had a proud tradition of consistently beating NPS Fire to calls, including one in a building that housed the NPS Fire Valley Engines. It trained twice as much as NPS Fire, and since they were company employees, usually knew a structure’s layout and operations much better than a NPS Firefighter.
Sadly, without the knowledge of both the concession and NPS Fire Chief’s, when Aramark took over the contract from Delaware North in 2016, Aramark leadership quietly cut a side deal with park management to pay NPS an annual amount to eliminate Engine 7. In 2018, after 80 plus years of service to the community, Station 7 was silently decommissioned.
David Stone
Chief of Security and Fire, Delaware North | Aramark
2000-2018
