Dagen

Firefighter to end 63 years of service
BY LARRY ALTMAN, Staff Writer
LA Daily News

Larry Schneider heard the alarm, jumped from his chair, dashed through the door, slid down the fire pole and headed to his truck.

The Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief had done this countless times before, answering someone’s call for help.

But this time, Schneider was shifting into the final days of his career. And on Friday, the 79-year-old Torrance resident will bring to a close a 63-year career in the fire service.

Having worked at fire stations from San Pedro and South Central to the San Fernando Valley, Schneider is believed to be the longest-working field firefighter to have served in the United States.

He is a virtual history book in Los Angeles firefighting, working at most of the city’s major fires and catastrophes since the 1940s.

He’s seen brushers, riots, towering infernos, plane crashes, earthquakes, sunken ships, cliff rescues and floods. He rushed into blazes before protective gear became mandatory, fought brush fires before helicopter airdrops existed and helped the department integrate minorities and women.

“I’ve been a fireman my whole life,” Schneider said. “I have never been assigned to a desk job. My entire career has been in fire suppression and rescue.”

Schneider could have retired long ago. He considered it in 1988 when his wife of 36 years, Marjorie, died of cancer. But he decided to keep working.

“I had no plans of staying this long,” Schneider said. “When she passed away, that made a huge change in my life. I could retire and I could travel. I could do a lot of things. I could become a lounge lizard.

“I’m not any of those. I do enjoy the Fire Department. I do enjoy working.”

To his colleagues, Schneider is an icon.

“I hate to see him go. His loyalty to the fire service and to the city of Los Angeles is unparalleled,” said Gary Jenkins, Schneider’s staff assistant and partner at fire scenes for the last 14 years.

Schneider’s son, department Capt. Larry Schneider Jr., compared him to World War II Gen. George Patton, loved by most but feared by many.

“George Patton was a very popular, but sometimes feared man,” the son said. “He never took his eye off what he was there for. Nothing was more important. Being a good fireman was always where my dad’s eye has been.”

Born Dec. 28, 1927, he knew as a young boy that he wanted to follow his father, Ted Schneider, and brother into a firefighting career. His father helped form the Los Angeles County Fire Department in the 1920s.

“He was 14 when he joined the auxiliary department, right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” his son said. “It was exciting for him and that was his life.”

He battled hay fires, incinerator fires, grass fires and car fires. Oil derricks dotting the region sometimes ignited like torches. Planes crashed as more and more crisscrossed the Los Angeles-area skies.

They paid him $3 a blaze, or $22 for a 24-hour shift.

Schneider joined the Torrance Fire Department in 1949, often battling fires that ignited atop oil derricks scattered around the city.

Following a stint in the Army from 1950 to 1952, he rejoined the Torrance department and was promoted to engineer. But he wanted something more, and set his sights on the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Despite a pay cut and loss in seniority, Schneider took a job with Los Angeles in 1954 and never left. He worked in every part of the city, finding himself at virtually every major fire and event - from the Bel-Air fire to the Northridge Earthquake. He even worked on Fire Boat 2 in the Port of Los Angeles.

Now assigned to a fire station adjacent to the University of California, Los Angeles, Schneider oversees firefighters at six stations in West Los Angeles, Brentwood, Bel-Air and Pacific Palisades.

Battalion Chief John Vidovich said Schneider sometimes went beyond just answering the call. Several years ago, he purchased a car for a woman he met at an emergency scene. The woman’s son was autistic and he knew she needed transportation.

Vidovich said Schneider asked an automobile salesman to deliver the car to the woman anonymously. The recipient likely never knew who gave it to her, he said.

Schneider probably would stay on the job a bit longer, but a contract he signed five years ago to keep working is expiring. It’s time to go and collect his pension.

Schneider, who had several other family members in the firefighting business, has made no plans. He knows he will wake up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, just like always.

He will miss sitting around, drinking coffee and talking with his colleagues in the station, waiting for the next call.

larry.altman@dailybreeze.com