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About Baja California

Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km2 (27,071 sq mi), or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises the northern half of the Baja California peninsula, north of the 28th parallel. The state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Sonora, the U.S. State of Arizona, and the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), and on the south by Baja California Sur. Its northern limit is the U.S. state of California.

The state has a population of 2,844,469 (2005 census), and estimated 3,165,776 (June 2009) much more than the sparsely populated Baja California Sur to the south, and similar to San Diego County, California on its north. Over 75% of the population lives in the capital city, Mexicali, in Ensenada, or in Tijuana. Other important cities include San Felipe, Rosarito and Tecate.

Baja California is where it all began, our visit to Tecate in 1999 started us on our path. We began working with the city of Tecate and the Bomberos from around the state. We have been working to bring agencies representing millions of citizens in the State together for more collaborative training and operations. Where borders were distinct and rarely crossed there is now more mutual assistance and development of resources. 

In 2009, we began working with the group Bomberos De San Diego, a group of San Diego Fire firefighters that work in the area doing similar work. We partnered to bring training to Tecate initially and eventually worked in Tijuana Bomberos and were able to organize regional training at both Tecate and Tijuana inviting bomberos from around the area. Today, being one of the largest Cities in Mexico,  we regularly rely on these Bomberos to assist us in our training.

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R&R in Sacramento

on . Posted in Baja California

We have been spending the last three days with our good friends and FFCB members, Steve and Patty Marks. Steve works as a Captain/PM for Emeryville FD and allows us to use his house as a stop over on our way to and from Mexico.

We know that its 16 hours to home from Sacramento, and as we get older and more curious we have tended to split the trip and look for places to stay and check out. We have also been able to visit fire departments along the way as well.

One such department recently was the Rogue River Fire Dept. Some time ago Chief Dan Hunt of the Rogue River Fire Department in Oregon, contacted us through our website with an offer for a equipment donation. For the past year we have tried to catch someone coming down to the area to pick up the items, and with the issues of surplusing the timing wasn’t the best. We were able to contact Chief Hunt and arrange to pickup some surplused equipment as we headed back this trip.

Here we are spending the night near Rogue River in Grants Pass, Oregon. After some other than Mexico cuisine we can’t wait to arrive back home.

We are already planning our next board meeting to debrief this trip and work on our next project which has currently been scheduled. We are working with Turlock FD in Ca to ship a  1990 telesquirt to Culiacan FD in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. November of 2008 an instructor team lead by Steve Ness of Whatcom County Washington and interpreters possibly from New Mexico, and Alabama will head to Culiacan for a 4-5 day Ladder ops academy. We are excited to return to Culiacan after delivering their Ladder truck in 2006.

While on our trip we learned of an effort by the Pierce Co Fire Chiefs lead by Chief Greg Miller of McNeal Island FD, to raise money for us to purchase an enclosed trailer. This year we were almost trailer-less until the boys at ERTI (Emergency Response Training Institute) out of Seattle Fire came through for us. We are looking for a 20 ft enclosed double axle trailer to meet our needs for our pickups and missions.

We leave in the morning and hope to be hugging our wives by the evening. Thanks for following along with us and look forward to our newsletter that we will undertake upon return.

Tags: Tecate Missions

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