Fire station revives past

Inside the Balboa Island fire station, what were once blank walls and an empty stairwell are now a portal to the past of the Newport Beach Fire Dept.

Photos, newspaper clippings and original equipment — including a restored 1920 LaFrance fire engine — carefully displayed around the station tell the story of the department’s nearly century-old history.

As the two-year project nears completion, the fire department will mark the finishing touches by presenting the restored fire engine at the Newport Beach City Council meeting Tuesday.

Fire Engineer Mike Novak, who has been with the department for 28 years, came up with the idea for the fire station museum because he wanted to commemorate the department’s lengthy history.

Novak isn’t the first Newport Beach firefighter to make an effort at compiling a department history. Dutch Van Horn, a now-retired Newport Beach fire captain, kept books of photos and history of the department.

“He was like the department historian,” Novak said.

Unfortunately, when Van Horn was compiling his history, there were no such things as computers and digitally-enhanced photos. The memory books put together by Van Horn are falling apart and kept in a glassed-in book shelf on the second floor of the station.

“He did so much; he just didn’t have the tools that I have,” Novak said.

Van Horn took pictures of every fire department employee, and now Novak is trying to do the same. While he’s working on taking casual photos of all the department employees, he added everyone’s name to a plaque inside the fire station museum.

Most of the photos and material for the museum were found in fire stations or inside the old city jail when it was being cleaned out, Novak said.

“They were all sitting in the old city jail, decrepit,” Novak said.

While every piece of the museum tells a story, the shiniest object on display is no doubt the bright red restored fire engine.

“It’s just something that’s going to be an asset for the city of Newport Beach,” said the city’s auto body and paint mechanic Rick Poulson, who restored the engine. “The kids just really enjoy old firetrucks. They’re very unique looking; they don’t look like a modern day firetruck.”

The engine is not an original Newport Beach fire engine, but is almost identical to one of the earliest engines the fire department had.

Poulson, who’s in charge of the city’s more than 400 vehicles, has restored old cars before, but said the old fire engine is his proudest project.

“I’ve restored a lot of nice things in my life, but nothing like this,” Poulson said. “It’s really an exceptional piece of equipment.”

When a fire captain asked him to restore it, he was happy to take on the task. When the city got the engine, it was only 65% original, so Poulson made his own parts or bought them online to make the engine as original as possible.

The final touch was a gold-leafing paint job done by an artist from Missouri.

Depending on schedules, the firefighters at the Balboa Island station sometimes leave the big garage doors open or roll out the old fire engines so onlookers can take a peek.

Although the mini-museum inside the fire station is mostly intended for the department and isn’t officially a public museum, firefighters at the station said they’re happy to let people come in and take a look around.