Firefighter Answers the Call--of Retirement

OAK PARK —  Bill Young thought he had said goodbye to early-morning trips on firetrucks, but when a vintage engine pulled up at his Canoga Park house Saturday, the recently retired firefighter was ready to respond.

The truck was there to carry Young on a trip down memory lane--and the Ventura Freeway.

A career of 33 years with the Ventura County Fire Department and thousands of fire and medical calls ended for Young in March. His wife and several of his six children planned the surprise retirement celebration, which took Young from his home in the Valley to six eastern Ventura County fire stations.

A third-generation firefighter, Young, 57, was a green recruit who couldn’t put his boots on right when he joined the Fire Department in 1966 after a stint in the Army.

“The first call when somebody was hurt and needed help--it was such a great feeling when it was all over,” he said. “I just immediately fell in love with the job.”

At Station 36 in Oak Park, where Young was a captain for eight years before his retirement, former colleagues stopped in Saturday to say hello.

“If I were a citizen on the street and I needed assistance, [Young] is the firefighter I would have wanted to come to my aid,” said Mike Proett, who joined the Fire Department shortly after Young and is now an assistant chief. Proett called Young “the most compassionate firefighter I ever worked with.”

“He always knew why he was a firefighter,” Proett added.

Young still tears up when he recalls a Port Hueneme house fire where firefighters found a child lying dead in the rubble. His eyes also moisten when he remembers resuscitating a Simi Valley 2-year-old who had fallen into a swimming pool.

“I remember the first time that I felt a baby take my breath. Never will there be anything to equal that feeling,” he said.

During the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, Young and four of his family were on duty: his younger brother, a Los Angeles city firefighter; and Young’s oldest son, older brother and a nephew, who all work for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Young continues to fight fires and perform rescues--on television as the fire chief on soap operas “General Hospital” and “Port Charles.”

Under the stage name Bill Dempsey (his mother’s maiden name), Young has also played firefighters, doctors, pilots and police officers on other TV shows and in movies.

Sometimes playing a firefighter for Hollywood can feel like the real thing, Young said.

“I’m surprised at the level of accuracy those writers somehow come up with,” he said. “There is very little stuff that I feel needs to be changed.”

And if there were an inaccuracy in the script, Young would be quick to point it out, fellow firefighters say. Around the firehouse, Young was considered brave, fit and compassionate, but he could also be opinionated and stubborn.

“You could always count on him to stand his ground--on the job and personally,” Capt. Vaughan Miller said.

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An amateur boxer who hung a punching bag in the firehouse, Young once challenged another fireman to a fight, which Young won. Early in his career, Young refused to cut his frizzy hair to appease the fire chief. Instead, he wore a wig over his long hair--for two years.

Young was also known in the department for traveling hundreds of miles every Christmas, dressed as Santa Claus. Firefighters would give Young the presents they had picked out for their children, and on Christmas Eve, Santa would knock on the door or rap on a window.

“Talk about an actor,” Proett said. “He was one of the best Santa Clauses you ever saw.”

One other role Young has played: He is Mr. May in a 1999 beefcake calendar--one of the few firefighters wearing a shirt.

“I was the only one who showed up naked,” Young joked, “and they kept putting clothes on me.”