A Bee Sting, a Backboard and a Mile-Long Carry: Why Small Fire Departments Carry a Big Load

[Cropped stock photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash]

The call went out to Hidden Springs Campground, but the man wasn’t there. A family member had to run ahead on the trail just to flag them down and point them the right way. It helped that Fire Chief Willo Sernovitz knew the ground. The trail down to the river is one he and his wife Ember, the department’s assistant chief, hike all the time, so once he had a general direction, he knew exactly where to go.

How fast someone responds, and how ready they are when they get there, often matters more than anything the patient did or didn’t have on hand. That’s where Myers Flat Fire comes in, and it’s a big part of why a small department with a tight budget still has to be ready for anything, every single day.

The Sernovitz’s responded with epinephrine and oxygen on board, soon backed up by two Cal Fire engines and a City Ambulance of Eureka crew, the kind of multi-agency teamwork that Southern Humboldt leans on every day, where departments routinely pool their people and equipment to give a patient the best shot, no matter who answers the call first. They gave the man a first dose of epinephrine and he didn’t respond right away. A second dose brought him back. From there, crews carried him on a backboard nearly a mile back up the trail to a waiting ambulance.

“It was a pretty intense experience, and we were really honored to be able to do what we do in our community,” Sernovitz said. He had high praise for the agencies that backed him up. “Cal Fire are so amazing. They always got our back. Those guys are incredible, and we see them at almost all our calls.” City Ambulance of Eureka, he said, brought “some amazing paramedics” to the scene. “It was just a really good collaboration of a lot of agencies. We all work together all the time, and everybody knows everybody. We’re able to work well together.”

Sernovitz, who has his own bee allergy, said anyone with a known reaction should keep an EpiPen on them, not just in the car, and consider carrying chewable Benadryl as a longer-lasting backup once the epinephrine wears off. As of this writing, the man’s condition had not been confirmed, but Sernovitz said he was hopeful for a full recovery.

Small district, big stretch of highway

Myers Flat is a small town, but Highway 101 and the Avenue of the Giants run straight through it. That means the department’s job isn’t only to look after its own residents. It’s also the first line of response for anyone passing through, whether that’s a family on a road trip, a hiker from out of town, or a commercial truck driver who breaks down on the highway.

That pattern repeats up and down the redwood corridor. People who live somewhere with a large, well-funded city fire department may never think twice about response times, but the moment they’re camping, driving through, or visiting a rural stretch of the North Coast, the closest help is likely to be a small, often volunteer-staffed department running on a fraction of a city budget.

Departments like Myers Flat Fire rely heavily on grants, fundraising and community donations to cover equipment costs, leaning on agreements like California’s statewide mutual aid system when a call needs more hands or engines than a single small district can field.

A New Tool to Save Lives

Sernovitz said the department recently raised enough money to buy a Lucas device, a mechanical chest compression machine, along with an extra battery pack. He said Myers Flat is now the first department in Southern Humboldt to carry one. “We got everything we needed, including the accessories,” he said. “We’re super thankful to everybody who was more than generous in helping make that happen.”

A study that simulated CPR during prehospital transport found the Lucas delivered steadier, higher-quality compressions than manual CPR while a patient was being moved, down a riverbank, through brush, or up a trail on a backboard, exactly how a lot of Myers Flat’s calls actually unfold.

The American Heart Association’s 2025 CPR guidelines don’t recommend mechanical compression devices as a routine replacement for manual CPR, since large clinical trials haven’t shown they save more lives in typical situations. But the guidelines do say the Lucas works well in situations like these, where it’s hard to keep compressions steady by hand. For a small, donation-funded department like this one, that’s the real value of the new equipment.

A region trying to catch up

Myers Flat isn’t alone in trying to modernize on a shoestring budget. Earlier this year, 10 volunteer fire departments across Southern Humboldt and Mendocino counties received brand-new Type 6 fire trucks, funded through $2 million secured by state Sen. Mike McGuire.In Humboldt County, Briceland, Garberville, Palo Verde, Telegraph Ridge and Whitethorn all received new rigs, alongside Covelo, Laytonville, Leggett, Piercy and Westport in Mendocino County. Because these departments operate under mutual aid agreements, an upgrade at one department effectively strengthens response capacity for the whole region.

Piercy Volunteer Fire Department Fire Captain Andrew Cardoza, whose department received one of the new engines, said departments like his lean on each other constantly to get by. “It is a good feeling to help support our neighbor fire departments whenever we can,” he said. That kind of cooperation matters more as call volume rises and training requirements get more demanding, even as the cost of keeping trucks running keeps climbing.

The other side of the job

Sernovitz and Ember, who serves as the department’s assistant chief, chief medical officer and apparatus engineer, are often the first faces a person in trouble sees in this stretch of Southern Humboldt. During the bee sting interview, it came up as something of a running joke: people are lucky to run into Willo and Ember, even though it usually means something has gone badly wrong.

Sernovitz pushed back on that a little. People may not want to need Myers Flat Fire, he said, but the department is always glad to show up when they do. And there’s a version of seeing the crew that doesn’t involve an emergency at all. Every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the department runs a barbecue in Myers Flat, selling hamburgers to help cover the cost of gear. Sernovitz has the math down: it takes 132 hamburgers sold to pay for one pair of turnout pants, and 56 to cover a helmet.

It’s a small number with a big point behind it. The same community that calls Myers Flat Fire when something goes wrong is also, one hamburger at a time, the reason the department has the equipment to answer.

Note: This article has been edited after original publication to correct the burger count needed to purchase a helmet.