Dennis Boyer is one of the longest-serving instructors in Palomar\u2019s widely celebrated Fire Academy. On Dec. 30, he\u2019ll work his last shift with the Escondido Fire Department.<\/p>\n
ESCONDIDO \u2014 For 39 and a half years, Capt. Dennis Boyer has spent most of his professional life three minutes away from the action.<\/p>\n
Three minutes: that is the response time when a call comes into the station.<\/p>\n
But since 1995, when he first started teaching at the Palomar College Fire Academy, the other half of Boyer\u2019s career has been less rushed and more deliberate. Alongside dozens of other veteran firefighters from all over North County who teach at Palomar, Boyer has trained classes upon classes of men and women how to work the fire engines and ladder trucks that would be their daily stock-in-trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys I grew up with in the fire service, I\u2019m now seeing their sons in the Fire Academy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy stepson went through the 45th Academy at Palomar,\u201d he added, his mustache twisting into a grin. \u201cThat was kind of cool, because it was the only time in his life he had to call me \u2018Sir.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Dec. 30, 2018, Boyer will clock in for his last shift at Station 3\u2014but even in retirement, his tenure at Palomar College will go on. He will be back next year for another Academy.<\/p>\n
During the 2007 firestorm, Boyer was celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife when he got the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were at the Chart House, we had just sat down and ordered,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife was looking at the ocean and she said, \u2018It\u2019s snowing!\u2019 I said, \u2018No, that\u2019s ash.\u2019 She said, \u2018You\u2019re going to get called in,\u2019 and my phone rang right then. We cancelled dinner, I got into the station, and at about 4 in the morning, the fire hit Escondido.\u201d<\/p>\n
That memory more or less sums up the life of a firefighter: the thrill of battle, the adrenaline of rushing toward an emergency, the feeling of being desperately needed, as well as the sadness of missing out on family life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the job,\u201d said Boyer.<\/p>\n
That job ends, for this captain, today. But the other\u2014the training of reinforcements to take his place\u2014goes on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I\u2019ll miss the most is the camaraderie,\u201d he said. \u201cYou spend 24 hours at a time here, 10 days a month, so basically a third of my life has been spent with these guys. They are family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job has been rewarding, and sometimes it just drives you crazy\u2014you see the things people do to themselves, or the reasons they call and you go, \u2018This is not a 9-1-1 call.\u2019 But it is the job. There\u2019s never a dull moment. You go from zero to 60 in a heartbeat\u2014you can be here, eating dinner, and the next thing you know you\u2019re running up a mountain chasing a brush fire. Talk about an adrenaline rush.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every veteran of the fire service carries a library of memories\u2014some of which they love to tell, and others that will never see the light of day.<\/p>\n
Some memories are difficult: Above all, the children they tried to save.<\/p>\n
Some are comic: \u201cThe dispatcher says the woman on the other end of the line is hysterical,\u201d Boyer recalled. \u201cWe get there, it\u2019s an hour before prom, her son has spit gum into her daughter\u2019s hair, and she wants to know how to get it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And others are hair-raising: During the Witch Fire in 2007, Boyer walked around the corner of a house and into the maw of the beast. Pelted by wind-driven pieces of burning coal, like pebbles of fire, he backed up to safety and found his turnouts riddled with charred holes.<\/p>\n
But as an instructor at Palomar College, Boyer carries with him another set of memories, pleasant ones, in which he runs into former students on the job. Hundreds of men and women Boyer helped train are now saving lives and fighting wildfires across California and beyond\u2014and he has often reconnected with them in the unlikeliest of places.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree years ago, we were up in Kings Canyon on the Rough Fire for two weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw a young man who worked in Fresno, and who graduated from one of our Fire Academies. He walks up and goes, \u2018Captain Boyer! I was in the 28th Academy!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After numerous such encounters, Boyer said he is proud not only of his work with the Escondido Fire Department, but also of the part he played in developing the Palomar College Fire Academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built a really good Academy,\u201d he said. \u201cYou go to other parts of the state and they\u2019ll say, \u2018I\u2019ve heard of Palomar.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyer is married with three kids and two grandchildren, and he knew he wanted to be a firefighter since he was a boy, riding his bicycle past the neighborhood station near his family\u2019s house in West Covina. One day the crew gave him a tour of the station. He joined the Explorers at age 15 and never looked back.<\/p>\n
And, for 23 years now, he has helped mold young men and women with similar stories who turned to Palomar as their path to careers in the fire service.<\/p>\n
With a patient manner and decades of wisdom, Boyer has been a student favorite at Palomar, and on a recent Monday night at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, the graduating class of Fire Academy 54 presented him with an award.<\/p>\n
He descended from the balcony dressed in uniform, and as he returned to his seat carrying the decorated oar, Fire Academy Coordinator John Thompson recalled learning from Boyer when he attended Palomar\u2019s 12th Academy.<\/p>\n
Boyer started teaching at Palomar in 1995 with the 10th Academy, and quickly found his place teaching the Engine & Truck module.<\/p>\n
Unlike a fire engine, which has water, a hose and a pump, \u201cYou have to be certified in certain things to work on a truck\u2014you have to be certified in heavy rescue, swift water and trench rescue,\u201d Boyer explained. \u201cI really enjoyed that type of work, so I started teaching that at the college.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, like many other fire officials in North County, Boyer encourages potential recruits to enter Palomar\u2019s Fire Academy not only because it\u2019s local, but because he says it\u2019s one of the best: \u201cOur graduates will say that the reputation of the academy has preceded them, because when they get hired, they\u2019re told, \u2018We hired you because you graduated from the Palomar Fire Academy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"