“I’d Rather Do It Myself”; The Terra Linda Fire Department/San Rafael Fire Department Kerfuffle of 1967 Tara Maginnis Tara@costumes.org Friction between the Terra Linda Fire Department and San Rafael Fire Department existed early in Terra Linda Fire Department history. This was because parts of the Terra Linda subdivision in Las Gallinas Valley were legally parts of San Rafael, and others were unincorporated parts of Marin County, while the central area (mostly Eichler houses) of Terra Linda was covered by the Terra Linda Community Services District, initially formed in 1957 to pay for street lighting and canal repair in that area. According to an editorial by Eric Colby in the May 24th, 1967 Terra Linda-Marinwood News (pg 7), “For the last 10 years, since the inception of the [TLCSD], relations between the City of San Rafael and the CSD have been miserable. Through the years an unreasonable hostility has grown among representatives of the city towards the CSD and particularly towards its fire department. An all-too-simple explanation, but one that contains the substance…when San Rafael was in the business of annexing large portions of this area, residents of the CSD did not care for the terms of annexation and formed a volunteer fire department for local fire protection which was the issue or basis for considering annexation. At the time the city did not have a station in the area. Bitter exchanges between the two sides in the early days seem to have set the tone for relations ever since which have reached the preposterous extreme whereby the San Rafael fire chief pretends not to know what CSD Chief George Walser’s name is. A fire that destroyed a home in 1958 originally inspired the Terra Linda CSD to form the Terra Linda Fire Department that year, (after trying and failing to get San Rafael to agree to putting a fire house in Las Gallinas Valley as a condition of voting to join San Rafael). Almost at once this meant in these Pre-911 days that that fire calls would come in from parts of the Terra Linda subdivision that were in areas not covered by the CSD, including those which were governmentally in San Rafael. The TL CSD had an official policy that the Terra Linda Fire Department should not go to these fires unless asked to go first by the covering Fire Department after they had forwarded the fire call information to San Rafael or the County. If the fire in question was a house fire, the Marin County Fire Service (which was mostly specialized for rural fires) nearly always did ask Terra Linda to go, even if it meant the Terra Linda Fire Department got there first, but San Rafael did not. After a while, Terra Linda, the directly adjacent Marinwood, as well as nearby Hamilton Air Force Base, and the Marin County
Fire Service worked together routinely, especially on grass fires. However Chief Truitt of San Rafael tended to regard the Terra Linda Fire Department as amateurs operating a sort of bucket brigade. Terra Linda, though at this time mostly still volunteers except for their Chief, and two paid firemen, had all taken numerous fire science classes with the California Fire Training Program, drilled extensively, and by 1962 even had more and newer equipment than San Rafael had posted at their nearest to Terra Linda station across Highway 101 (at Joseph Court Station, now closed). San Rafael had a formal Mutual Aid agreement with nearly every fire department in the area except Marinwood’s and Terra Linda’s Fire Departments which were both originally all filled with volunteer firemen, though by this time had paid chiefs and 1-2 paid full time firemen each. The Terra Linda Fire Department, being aware that in a housing tract with all tar and pebble roofs, fires can jump very quickly from house to house and into their own area, tended to want to put any fires out before this happened, and were annoyed with San Rafael's attitude. The San Rafael Fire Department in turn were highly annoyed if they found that the Terra Linda Fire Department had put out a fire before they arrived, as was the case in the early years of the Terra Linda Fire Department, and so put pressure on the Terra Linda CSD to prevent this. (As well as much verbal abuse from Chief Truitt to the Terra Linda volunteers in person). The Terra Linda Fire Department therefore generally only went when “invited” to San Rafael Fire area fires. However, the Terra Linda Fire Department continued nonetheless to simply go immediately to any resuscitator calls for kids reported to be semi-drowned in the many pools in Terra Linda because they knew they already had the best resuscitator equipment in the area, (purchased by the fundraising efforts of the TLFD Women’s Auxiliary, shown below in 1961 in the Terra Linda News with the author of this paper as the baby held by my mother Marion Maginnis at the far right). Seconds count in such cases, and you never knew which neighbor’s pool your own kid might have been playing in that day. This further distressed the San Rafael Fire Department, who wanted to get funds for similarly advanced resuscitator equipment and were stymied in making the argument it was needed because the Terra Linda Fire Department was always showing up to pool drownings first. But the conflict did not come to a head until January-June 1967.
On 1pm Monday January 2nd, 1967 a call of a fire in the Eichler home of Gerald L Thompson & family at 915 Del Ganado Road (at the farthest West part of Terra Linda in the San Rafael district), came into the TL Fire House and was taken by TLFD Chief George Walser who passed it onto the San Rafael Fire Department dispatcher. San Rafael’s dispatcher, as was San Rafael Fire Department policy, then refused the offered aid from the Terra Linda Fire Department which was located a short distance from the fire. Even so, Walser later still informed the volunteer Terra Linda firefighters, via the Plectron radio signaling system in every firefighter’s home, that there was a fire, for which Terra Linda engines would not be called out, going near the dead end of Del Ganado. So, some Terra Linda volunteers went on their own to observe and show residents how to train garden hoses on their adjacent roofs to prevent fire spread to the Terra Linda area. The San Rafael Fire Department engine (from the Joseph Court Station) unfortunately
took some time longer to arrive than the TL volunteers did, and longer than the Del Ganado residents expected. Residents timed the arrival as 15 minutes from the call time, though Terra Linda Chief Walser estimated San Rafael took only 6 minutes. The house was “gutted from one end to the other” according to the San Rafael Battalion Chief Robert H. Rogers, killing the Thompson family’s pet cat and birds. It was generally thought even by Chief Walser and the observing neighbors that this loss of the entire house might well have occurred in any case because the homeowners were out, and the fire had not been noticed until it was far enough along for neighbors to notice it. This might have come to nothing if not for the exciting front page reporting of the fire in the San Rafael Chief Walser demonstrating the danger of highly flammable Polish made Independent Journal article the next dolls in a photo-spread showing the rapid stages of the doll burning. Terra rd Linda-Marinwood News, 1967. day, January 3 , provocatively titled: “Neighboring Aid Refused In Home Fire” with a big photo on the inside of the paper with a shocked Mrs. Thompson standing in the charred ruins of her home with the San Rafael Battalion Chief. Then there were incendiary comments reported from Chief Walser of Terra Linda about the dispatcher refusing help, though, “Walser estimated that his men could have reached the Thompson home in about a minute.” San Rafael Chief Truitt disagreed “I was on the Freitas Parkway, almost to the Fire when I heard Walser broadcast that there was a fire on Del Ganado.” so the news report was almost guaranteed to stir things up (both Chiefs were even more prickly in person, and their firefighters in San Rafael and Terra Linda had been annoyed with each other for years already). On the 4th, a guest editorial in the Terra Linda-Marinwood News “Homes Jeopardized” by Carelton Phillips of San Rafael began a small drumbeat of discontent among the San Rafael incorporated residents of the Las Gallinas Valley: “Monday’s house fire…has shown the ineffective fire protection which the City of San Rafael is providing…” he began, then described in detail the distance of the San Rafael fire house across the highway and the frequently bottlenecked roadway that lay between it and the houses it served on upper Del Ganado Road. “The station…is manned by three men. A full complement on a truck should be six men to be adequately staffed. Any additional aid requested must come out of San Rafael proper, an exceedingly long delay.” Mr. Phillips also took exception to the actions of the engine company: “Actions shown by the firemen on this understaffed truck, first to arrive, showed they were
insufficiently trained to cope with an Eichler fire…Attaching hoses directly to the fire plug and not running them through the truck pump seriously limited the working pressure…no effort was made to protect…surrounding homes…” He credited neighbors with garden hoses instead, for saving a nearby house, and pointed out that the TLFD “offered assistance before and after arrival of the first San Rafael fire truck” but the assistance was refused. Even so, things might have died down, until a remarkably similar fire in neighboring Marinwood the following week also wiped out an unattended Eichler, making all Eichler owners and their neighbors suddenly very nervous. The next day the first irate letter to the editor of the IJ titled "Fire Protection Is Not Adequate" comes from Lt. Col. Solomon J Jamerson, a near neighbor of the first house who beat up rather heavily on the San Rafael Fire Department with further details of the fire response, that "showed ineptness in dealing with the fire. They failed to use a source of water on the truck which should have been available for instant use, but chose to run a hose to a nearby fireplug. This left firemen holding a nozzle 'at the ready' while waiting for the hose to be connected. The hose subsequently kinked and a nozzle evidently improperly screwed on, leaked profusely". My Dad, C. Leo Maginnis, who was a founding member and a Captain in the Terra Linda Fire Department, says he thinks this quote may refer to the habit of the San Rafael Fire Department in that era to not want to mess up their engines by hooking it up to the hydrant, so the water flowed through the engine pump to the hose. Doing so required cleaning the pump and tank afterwards, so San Rafael in that era usually directly hooked hoses to hydrants. The trouble with doing this, is that the fire could not be fought with what was already in the tank while the hose was simultaneously getting hooked up. Also, Terra Linda hydrants had immense water pressure from the gravity of their massive water tank on the hill, and when the tank was full, without the pressure control of the pump to slow it, hooking directly hose-to-hydrant usually made controlling a hose very difficult. For these reasons, the Terra Linda Fire Department never did connect hose to hydrant without the engine in the middle. They considered the San Rafael Fire Department a bit sloppy for not doing it this way, which was yet another element of the friction between the two departments. Terra Linda residents started pressuring the members of both the CSD and the San Rafael City Council for reassurances of fire safety measures. On, January 11th the IJ reported that the Directors of the CSD had asked the Terra Linda Fire Department to survey all the Terra Linda CSD residents on the topic of fire protection after receiving calls from concerned residents, and that the residents of the San Rafael portions of TL not covered by the CSD, were also circulating a petition to the SR City Council on fire issues. By the following day, the IJ reported that 298 Terra Linda residents who are part of San Rafael had signed the petition that said they "deplore the inadequate fire protection provided by the City of San Rafael" and demanded "immediate attention and action". Also, that day, another Letter to the Editor in the IJ from Margaret Myles, a San Rafael district Terra Lindan, “Marinwood Blaze Worries Resident”, expressed sentiments even more irate: “Apparently human lives are not considered and the choice of shepherd leaves the sheep cold. As mutton in these pastures, our cries are as futile as Chloe in her swamp.”
On January 17th, the IJ announced in “Fire Protection Meeting Set” that the San Rafael City councilmen had referred the issue to the San Rafael Fire Commission, which would hold a meeting on February 2nd, and said also that they intended to invite Chief Walser of the TLFD to the meeting on the topic. On the same day, John T Hanley, a resident of San Rafael also wrote a Letter to the Editor in the IJ "Fire Statements Seem Careless" that tried to defend the San Rafael Fire Department by making the sort of statements that inevitably further irritated the Terra Lindans of Del Ganado Road: "The Firehouse is situated in the best possible position, especially when one considers the industrial and commercial land surrounding it. These are the people who pay the high taxes and deserve the most protection.” And later in the long letter: "to have used the truck' self-contained water would have been a waste of time. the 400 gallons they carry would have lasted a maximum of four minutes, and more likely 45 seconds (using 2 hoses). They needed both volume and pressure - which could have been obtained only from the hydrant" [Which shows that apparently, he was unaware that one part of the crew actually could have been hosing the house down from the engine instead of "at the ready" holding the hose, while the other half connected the hydrant to the engine, ensuring volume and pressure would arrive shortly and be better controlled once it did.] He went on to speculate about the residents themselves “Have we even an alarm that would sound from excessive heat? Any fire extinguishers, Are there adequate hoses around our homes? They sure weren’t in evidence on Del Ganado.” Not surprisingly by January 23, another IJ Letter to the Editor, "First, Clean Your Own House" from Lee Strauss (Mrs Walter), a Terra Linda resident, makes it quite evident that it has not helped, and that folks were getting more irate: “It is true that the industrial areas contribute the highest taxes, but how with a clear conscience, can you Mr. Hanley or anyone else, equate the value of human life to money? If your children suffered in a fire would you then be so complacent about the industrial area being protected far better than you are?” The TL-M News on 1/25/67 urges “Terra Linda residents concerned with fire protection…should plan to attend a special meeting of the San Rafael fire commission...to be held at City Hall.” The meeting has reportedly been called “at the request of the city council after being presented with a signed petition…demanding some improvements in the …service in the Terra Linda area.” Interestingly, “Residents and businessmen in Terra Linda have met twice in the last two weeks to plan their presentation to the commission.” Because they believe that “three full time firemen…are an inadequate number of bodies at a fire with residential and two commercial shopping centers” including Northgate I & II (Mall), at the time, the largest outdoor shopping mall in Marin County. The San Rafael Fire Commission meeting rolled around on February 2nd and was held with about 100 "residents of the far West corner of Terra Linda" in attendance according to the IJ. There is no indication that any representatives of the TLFD were present at this meeting, or even invited there. The spokesman for the residents at this meeting requested that San Rafael make a deal with the Terra Linda Fire Department to answer fire calls in their area. "First, however, he heard a long discussion of fire fighting and its problems by Fire Chief Vance Trivett, who was nettled over criticism of his department, particularly a letter by one Carelton Phillips which appeared in the weekly Terra Linda News." The IJ article (2/3/67 pg. 21) goes on much more, describing things Chief Truitt said in resistance to the mutual aid idea of the residents: his view of Eichler's
as "Fire Traps", the inferior size of the Terra Linda Fire Department, the insurance and jurisdictional issues, etc. He also suggested to residents of Terra Linda that they hold fire drills. Nonetheless it is reported that a Fire Commissioner agrees they should "talk about" possible mutual aid, and eventually the IJ reports the Commissioners agree to make a report and recommendation to the City Council to make such a pact. On March 16th, the IJ also reports that San Rafael City Councilman Jensen said he would ask the SR City Council to sign a mutual aid contract with the Terra Linda Fire Department. However, nothing actually appears to have happened, and on the 29th of that month Lt. Col. Jamerson wrote a second Letter to the Editor of the IJ, “Fire Plans Delays May Affect Election” pointing out that the Fire Commission, in fact had still neither written a report, nor made any recommendation to improve fire service in the Terra Linda section of San Rafael to the City Council as Jensen promised back on February 2nd. Jamerson also found it "somewhat ironic to hear Councilman Jensen state on a recent KTIM broadcast that the city was working on a mutual aid agreement with the Terra Linda Fire Department" when Jamerson was aware that the Terra Linda Fire Department had never even been approached by the City of San Rafael, even though a desire for such an agreement "has long been a stand taken by the officials of the Terra Linda Community Services District". He hinted darkly that voters in an upcoming election might install new representatives. In the The TL-M News Eric Colby’s weekly column “The Crucible” of 5/10/67 Colby The TLM News Editor (and Terra Linda Resident) reported that back… On April 14, City Manager Dan Anderson wrote the Terra Linda CSD asking for an interview to discuss fire protection in this entire area. A meeting with two of the CSD directors was held and the CSD’s position was made very clear. It would always be prepared to render assistance on an “as available basis” outside its district if called by another fire department. “In our discussions.” Said TL Fire Commissioner Richard Less, “we made clear to Mr. Anderson that we would be interested in any mutually advantageous agreement…for the good of ALL of the residents of this area.” “We pointed out we could benefit from attending some of his training sessions and by the use of his training tower. It was our understanding that he would communicate with his department and fire commission and that he would return to us with some concrete proposal for our consideration.” By May 3rd the IJ puts out a byline article by Robert Strebeigh (the first and only IJ article with a byline in their reporting of this matter) “Hot Terra Linda Issue For Firemen” that outlines the issue, as well as a brief overview of Chief Trevitt’s arguments against making a pact with the Terra Linda Fire Department in advance of another Fire Commission meeting scheduled for the next day, Strebeigh also suggested that “The sharpest of the nettle’s thorns appears to be civic vanity, with San Rafael unwilling to believe its efficient, professional fire department needs its little neighbor’s willing help.” was what was preventing an agreement with the Terra Linda Fire
Department. He also notes that the Terra Linda Fire CSD director Richard Less had said the CSD was still not invited to the meeting. The Fire Commission meeting of May 4th that followed had the SR Fire Commissioners vote 4-0 against the proposal for having Terra Linda Fire Department respond first to fire calls in the West TL area of San Rafael. The meeting included yet more remarks made by Chief Trevitt that again argued against the proposal, this time including a statement about the Terra Linda Fire Department that "I think they are so anxious to go to a fire they can't wait for one in their own jurisdiction...they will descend on you like a plague if they think someone in the area has a fire". There was also a request relayed through the City Manager from the Terra Linda CSD area to allow Terra Linda Fire Department members to participate in the San Rafael Fire Department training program, (presumably to address San Rafael’s concerns about Terra Linda Fire Department professional standards) but the SRF Commissioners also refused this 4-0 after San Rafael Captain Gaylord Bonfield the training officer, gave several reasons against it, including arguing that the "training would have to be very different from that of San Rafael Firemen because volunteers cannot be trained in advanced techniques and the Terra Linda department does not have comparable equipment". This inspired a Terra Linda resident in attendance to inquire why the CSD had not been invited to send a representative "to answer these charges". The Chairman said "It was in the paper...We don't send out invitations..." The discussion also veered into the topic of "Should we continue to permit Eichler type construction?" as one person asked. Chief Trevitt wished that it could be so. [It was common wisdom among all Marin firefighters in this era that Eichler Houses were unusually inclined to burn, although now it has been seen over the many years of their existence that they are not actually any more inclined to fires than any other type of wooden house.] The IJ article also notes that the audience of this meeting "was composed chiefly of San Rafael firemen and their families." Another view of this meeting was opined in “The Crucible” on pg.7 of the The TL-M News by Eric Colby on 5/10/67: Ignoring both the public’s petition and Terra Linda’s willingness to cooperate the San Rafael Fire commission last Thursday listened carefully to some lowly and prejudiced opinions about the TLFD and decided by a vote of 4-1 against…mutual aid in Terra Linda…What was billed as a hot issue served as nothing more than a smoke screen to temporarily conceal the real issue – the city’s responsibility to respond to a public petition to provide better fire protection. An Agreement with Terra Linda might have been a step toward both better fire protection for San Rafael residents and toward annexation of Terra Linda…the near-sighted fire commissioners have blithely cemented another brick in the great political wall separating the two jurisdictions. On May 11th, the IJ political cartoonist Paul Miller drew a caricature of a uniformed and angry faced fireman, holding a hose, with "SRFD" on his chest, shoving a man in a a shirt and tie, holding a bucket marked "Terra Linda CSD", in the face as they both stand over a discarded burning cigar on the ground. The Cartoon is captioned "I'd Rather Do It Myself".
This cartoon finally riled J. Barry Watkinson, a volunteer at the Terra Linda Fire Department enough to chime in with a Letter to the Editor in the IJ on May 18th: “Terra Linda is not a ‘bucket-brigade’ type of fire department. True, the number of paid workers is small. But our turn out at a fire is much more in keeping with the job to be done than was that of the San Rafael department at the fire on Del Ganado…crew that responded on that occasion was possibly enough to extinguish the original fire, but it was not a large enough crew to prevent the fire from spreading. If Terra Linda volunteers, acting completely unofficially, had not manned an additional hose, that fire would have involved other property.” He also said, contrary to the San Rafael Fire Department’s contention that Terra Linda had inferior equipment, that the Terra Linda Fire Department had 3 usable fire trucks, “two of which are as well or better equipped than the one unit that San Rafael used.” and added “my impression is that most of us are willing, perhaps eager, to help protect our neighbors and their property.” Meanwhile, on May 17th Eric Colby again, in his weekly editorial “The Crucible’ on pg 7 in the TL-M News reported an incident at a San Rafael City Council meeting the preceding Monday, where “city councilman Fred Jensen accused a taxpayer of delivering a malicious and bigoted attack against him. His remarks caused Mayor Bettini to quiet him…the victim of Jensen’s rude remarks was Lt. Col. Solomon Jamerson...a community leader who is faithfully and persistently
trying to prod the city into responding favorably and quickly to a petition signed by a multitude of his neighbors…Jamerson observed that 14 weeks had passed since the fire…and no effort had been made by the city to cooperate with the Terra Linda CSD…no councilman should attack and attempt to intimidate a conscientious taxpayer who has the courage and willingness to devote his time on behalf of his neighbors to approach his elected officials…what responsible and selfrespecting citizen will dare approach the city council if he knows there is a good chance he will be beaten and humiliated by a self-righteous and petulant city councilman.” What is left unsaid, is that the citizen so attacked, was a notable African-American Artillery officer and Bronze Star recipient. On the same page (and issue) of the TL-M News, Lee Strauss writes another letter to the editor, this one more blistering than her first to the IJ. Whether this moved the San Rafael City Council, or, more probably, further intense pressure from Western Del Ganado continued, something by May 24th had caused the SR City Manager to push the SR Fire Commission to arrange to go directly to the Terra Linda firehouse to hopefully hammer out some sort of pact at 8pm on May 30th.
On June 1, 1967, the San Cartoon by Mel Warenbeck in the Terra Linda-Marinwood News 5/31/67 p. 7 The shape of the lower portion of the TLCSD Fire Department “Mohammed” reflects the appearance of the old TLFD fire house, a building that had an Eichleresque flat roof with enclosed garage on the left and sheltered truck port on the right side. The first building was actually built by a combination of the Eichler Co., their subcontractors and some volunteer labor by the firemen themselves.
Rafael Independent Journal front page headline read "San Rafael - Terra Linda Fire Aid Pact Reached". In a meeting that took only seven minutes, San Rafael agreed to “back up the Terra Linda department whenever Terra Linda’s equipment was already committed; that the Terra Linda Fire Department be granted use of San Rafael’s training tower and of its drafting pit used to test pumping equipment,” and Terra Linda agreed that they would be available on call to San Rafael but “in going to a fire in San Rafael’s jurisdiction to use its pumping equipment and not tie into hydrants, which will be reserved for the San Rafael’s department and that the Terra Linda department depart when San Rafael’s equipment arrives.” All the talking was done by the SR City Manager Dan E. Anderson and CSD Director Richard Less, though both Fire Chiefs, the full CSD board, the SR Fire Commission, and three members of the SR City Council, as well as 20 householders from the western Del Ganado Rd. were stuffed into the tiny Terra Linda Fire House to view the proceedings. On the agreement being approved, the householders, led by the Gerald L Thompson family (whose burnt house had ignited the controversy) all burst into applause. The IJ article describing all this sums up everything in the title: “Firemen Bury Hatchet For Mutual Aid.” Information contained in this paper has been digested from the recollections of my father, volunteer Captain Charles Leo Maginnis of the Terra Linda Fire Department 1958-1972, his saved paper trails relating to TLFD training, letters to the editor in the Terra Linda-Marinwood News and assorted articles and letters to the editor in the daily San Rafael Independent Journal for the following dates: 1/3/1967 Pgs. 1, 4, 24. 1/9/1967 Pg. 1. 1/10/1967 Pgs. 5, 25. 1/11/1967 Pg. 16. 1/12/1967 Pgs. 25, 44. 1/17/1967 Pg. 19. 1/23/1967 Pg. 20.
2/1/1967 Pg. 23. 2/3/1967 Pg. 21. 2/10/1967 Pg. 23. 3/16/1967 Pg. 42. 3/29/1967 Pg. 33. 5/3/1967 Pg. 23. 5/5/1967 Pg. 1, 4.
5/11/1967 Pg. 41. 5/16/1967 Pg. 5. 5/18/1967 Pg. 41. 5/24/1967 Pg. 28. 6/1/1967 Pg. 1.
This is a work in progress, if you have information and/or pictures to add to this story, please send it to tara@costumes.org!