By Elizabeth Cloutman
 Joan Mosher/ Special to the t=Town Crier |
Under Doug Sporleder’s guidance, local services improved
Most residents of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills are fortunate enough to need a firefighter only a few times during a lifetime, but those who have experienced a fire or medical emergency probably recall how grateful and relieved they felt to see the big truck respond just minutes after a call to 911.
For the past five years, the Santa Clara County Fire Department has provided this service to Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. The greater resources County Fire can provide has meant improvements in service, equipment and training, as well as high morale in the three area fire stations, some local firefighters and officials said. They gave the credit for this to the leadership of County Fire Chief Doug Sporleder, who plans to retire at the end of this month.
“We have an efficient and highly successful department. I think a large portion of the credit should go to Sporleder,” said Sid Hubbard, Los Altos Hills Fire District commissioner for the past 15 years.
“To my knowledge, Doug Sporleder and County Fire have done an excellent job for Los Altos over these past five years,” noted Los Altos City Council member King Lear.
Local firefighters call Sporleder a “firefighter’s fire chief.” Because firefighters spend 24-hour shifts together three days a week at each station, they become close. They consider Sporleder one of their own. He visits each station regularly and knows his employees well, firefighters said.
“He remembers what it’s like to be on line. We are not just employees. We are ‘his people,’” said Debbie Pardue, a firefighter at the El Monte station.
“He’s very approachable. He’ll sit down and listen to what you have to say,” added James Czerniec, a firefighter/paramedic at the Almond Avenue station.
In 1995, Sporleder, a third-generation firefighter, became chief of the second largest fire department in Santa Clara County, serving Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill, Saratoga, Monte Sereno and the surrounding unincorporated areas. County Fire has 265 full-time firefighters and 40 volunteers to serve 225,000 people, he said. Only San Jose’s department is larger.
“By providing regional services, no one city has to fund all the resources,” Sporleder said.
In the early 1990s, Los Altos officials decided that contracting out fire services would be the most cost-effective way to provide quality protection for city residents as well as those in the surrounding unincorporated area of Los Altos. The city spent four years considering its options, including the appointment of a citizens’ task force.
Because Los Altos Hills contracted with Los Altos for fire services, its fire district commissioners also began deliberations.
Los Altos and Los Altos Hills concluded the three best candidates for providing fire protection were the Palo Alto, Mountain View and Santa Clara County Fire departments. Both cities chose County Fire. On Dec. 31, 1996, their contracts with the county fire department became official.
For the Los Altos Hills Fire District commissioners, the decision to go with the county was unanimous, Hubbard said. Even with Dianne Gershuny, then the Los Altos city manager, as a strong advocate for County Fire, the council’s vote was 4-1, with Francis La Poll dissenting.
“One of the biggest challenges is local identity (when a city dissolves its fire department),” said Ron Prioste, a firefighter at the El Monte station. “(Residents) were afraid we’d no longer be a community fire department (that knew) how the city operated.”
Their concerns proved groundless. Most Los Altos firefighters remained at the Almond, El Monte and Loyola stations.
Firefighters have remained active in community life, participating in community events such as the Festival of Lights parade and the Los Altos Hills annual summer barbecue.
In place of the city fire marshal, County Fire has a fire prevention bureau with a full-time public education officer, Christie Moore. Moore plans and presents educational programs for the community and local schools.
Sporleder also keeps in touch with the communities his department serves, Hubbard said. “He’s attended almost every one of our fire commission meetings to make sure all our needs have been met.”
A crucial improvement in fire services since County Fire took over is that one firefighter on every shift at every station is trained as a paramedic - a goal of fire departments nationwide. A paramedic rides on a fire rig every time firefighters are dispatched. Firefighters are always the first on the scene of a medical emergency since American Medical Response ambulances can take up to 25 minutes to arrive, depending on location and traffic conditions. For some patients, the wait could mean the difference between life and death.
While all firefighters are trained as emergency medical technicians, they cannot legally administer life-saving drugs. Paramedics can. “Because Los Altos has an older population, medical emergency services dominate our calls,” said John Jamison, a 22-year Almond station veteran. “It’s so much better to have early intervention (by the ability to administer) drugs.”
Jamison and Bob Hagg, a fire captain at the El Monte station, said affiliating with County Fire has brought many improvements: new equipment including additional fire engines; an upgraded mapping system; regular training rotations; and mechanics who specialize in fire engine maintenance and conduct annual on-site inspections.
Hubbard said County Fire provided a weather station in Los Altos Hills at Sporleder’s insistence, so that local fire stations could warn communities of high fire danger in the area, which has open space with dry brush and many mature trees.
Hagg noted that recently, when Sporleder heard of a new device that enabled firefighters to locate people in thick smoke, he was eager to provide his employees with the device, knowing it could help save lives.
“It was like going from the Detroit Lions to the San Francisco 49ers,” an enthusiastic Hagg said of the transition to County Fire.
Hagg said local firefighters especially appreciated being a part of the county department when a tornado touched down in Los Altos on May 4, 1998, uprooting trees and causing power outages and damage to homes and Los Altos High School. “We started calling resources from Cupertino and Saratoga. That’s when we realized, you know what? We’ve got quite a cavalry.”
When he retires, Sporleder, 60, will leave behind a way of life. The lifelong Los Gatos resident is the son and grandson of former Los Gatos assistant fire chiefs and also has two brothers who are firefighters. “We grew up on it with the expectation we’d at least become a firefighter volunteer. One of the things (my family) taught us is we have to give back to the community, and that’s what we did.”
While his own children are not firefighters, he has a young grandson who is fascinated by the idea. “I guess it skipped a generation,” he said, laughing.
Sporleder became a volunteer fireman in 1963. He was in the process of completing his teaching credential when he decided to make firefighting his career in 1965. He rose through the ranks from firefighter to firefighter-engineer, training chief, assistant chief and finally chief. “I probably could have become a really good schoolteacher, (but) I’ve never looked back.”
Of his six-year reign as fire chief, Sporleder said, “I’m leaving things better than I found them.” Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents and firefighters who have worked with him over the last five years would likely agree.
