The historic 900-square-foot Malibu Fire Station behind Neptune’s Net, will be torn down by a developer. The new modern-designed station will be located just north of Leo Carrillo State Beach, on Pacific Coast Highway.
By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
It’s homey, it’s historic and it’s been home for rotating shifts of Ventura County firefighters for nearly 40 years. But the tiny firehouse with the million-dollar view of surfers, whales and islands is about to be history.
The Ventura County Fire Department has plans to build a new, modern $3 million firehouse on Pacific Coast Highway just north of Leo Carrillo State Beach. Old station 56, perched high on the bluff behind the Neptune’s Net restaurant, has lost its lease and will be torn down by a developer.
The 900-square-foot firehouse is the home-away-from home for the three-man squads that staff VCFD’s engines and a patrol vehicle. The yellow trucks are responsible for fires and traffic emergencies along a 15-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, and in the rugged mountains at the western end of the Santa Monica range behind Point Mugu.
“It’s basically just a little house with room for the equipment underneath it,” said Ventura Fire information officer Joe Luna.
Little student apartment might be more accurate. The small firehouse is crammed in an orderly manner with fire maps, equipment and all manner of things necessary to keep firefighters trained, rested and ready to respond.
The original station, built in 1968, is on land leased from Camp Joan Mier, a former summer camp that has been sold to a developer. Proceeds from the sale will underwrite continued operation of a sister camp for handicapped children in the San Bernardino Mountains, but the private developer has plans for his land that do not include fire stations.
The new, 5,600-square-foot structure will rise on Pacific Coat Highway just east of Tonga Street, where a boarded-up apartment complex stands. Construction is anticipated to begin early next year.
The old building, though, has its fans.
“You can see whales, dolphins, the islands, the surfers,” mused Capt. Alex Sanchez.
The new building will have a view of condominiums across the highway.
That said, the old station is a bit uncomfortable.
“It has no insulation,” Sanchez said. “When I was first stationed here they told me ‘Alex, buy an electric blanket.’ Like an idiot, I waited three years to get mine, and wouldn’t you know it, the next month I transferred out.”
Station 56’s three-person crews have to be a self-reliant lot, as the next nearest Ventura or Los Angeles county trucks can take a long time to respond to help. And, Sanchez said, two-way radio contact to the fire communications center in Camarillo is unreliable at the station and in almost all of Ventura County’s Malibu.
“Our last resort is a satellite phone,” Sanchez said.
A raging fire at a mountaintop group camp kitchen burned for 20 minutes before the small crew got there, and they were alone for 30 minutes battling flames before the next truck rolled in from Oxnard.
The station’s distinctive lemon-yellow truck is a daily visitor to Trancas, where the crew buys groceries while L.A. County’s red engines stationed at Encinal Canyon Road help cover their turf.
Coverage on the western end of the fire station’s area is backed up by civilian crews at Naval Station Point Mugu.
The Ventura fire trucks carry L.A. County fire radios for emergencies, and the two departments have a long tradition of mutual assistance.
Ventura County has long painted its trucks yellow, in the belief that they are more visible than red fire trucks.
About 30 Ventura County homes and a few condominiums complexes have Malibu addresses and rely on VCFD Station 56 for fire protection.
Firefighters and neighbors to the new Ventura County Station 56 have been consulted on the layout of the new firehouse.
“All the new stations provide for individual crew quarters for the firefighters, which include women now,” Luna said.
And while the spacious, modern and warm new quarters will be welcomed, the panoramic view from the old station will be missed, Sanchez said. “We’re going to miss the view and all the history,” he mused.