Cubero fire department continues to expand

Firefighter Tomi DeSoto checks the gauges on the pumper truck at the Cubero Fire Station. (Photo by Jerry WIlson/Independent)

By Jim Tiffin
Staff Writer

GRANTS — Before 1995, the rural Village of Cubero had no local fire department. Since then, the Cubero Volunteer Fire Department (CVFD), now with 10 fully-trained members, has provided responses to fires, medical emergencies and hazardous material spills.

Serving a community of 400-500 people, the fire department has grown from one small pickup truck with a portable slide-in apparatus for fighting fires to two fire engines, a tanker and a brush fire truck.

In addition to equipment, "The fire department has a paramedic, an intermediate EMT, a basic EMT and two EMT first responders," said Betty DeSoto, the department's secretary, EMT and the only female firefighter.

For the DeSotos, firefighting and EMT responses are a family affair.

Her husband, Joseph DeSoto, is an adjunct trainer for the state's firefighting school in Socorro and her daughter, Tomasita, who works at Mt. Taylor Ambulance, is an EMT and an instructor at the University of New Mexico's Emergency Medical Services school in Albuquerque.

A $55,000 grant from the state legislature last year has allowed the department to seek a location to build a new fire station. The current station is so small, parking the vehicles takes a special talent and possibly puzzle solving skills.

"We have to wait until someone (shows up) who knows how to back the vehicles into the building so they will all fit, otherwise they sit outside," DeSoto said.

The department needs about $200,000 and will be asking the legislature for additional funding in the 2006 session, she said.

Cubero is not unlike many rural villages. It has homes, two bars, a church, a post office, a school and a welding shop.

The only grocery store, which was in the process of being converted into a cultural center, burned down in 1996 or 1997, she said.

"That was our first really big fire,"she said.

Residents now travel to the Villa de Cubero store and gas station on U.S. Highway 66 just west of the community, or to Grants about 20 miles west for the majority of their shopping.

The volunteers all have day jobs, and most of them work out of town; so when an incident occurs during a weekday, it's certain who will show up.

"I do and my husband," DeSoto said laughing.

"We have really good mutual aid agreements with Acoma and Laguna," she said.

Nationwide, fire departments, whether all paid or all volunteer like Cubero, are getting into training for weapons of mass destruction incidents. Cubero is no different.

The volunteers meet twice a month at the fire station, the first Thursday for a business meeting and the third Wednesday for training.

Training is varied, it might be a video, hands-on or writing grants for the department, DeSoto said.

CVFD provides fire prevention programs for students at Cubero Elementary School and is developing a program for seniors in the area, she said.

Other grants from the state forestry division and FEMA have allowed the department to acquire a cascade system to fill its own oxygen tanks for firefighting and to purchase other needed fire equipment, she said.

A new trailer, stocked with special hazardous materials equipment is now situated at the fire station so that there can be a unit that responds on the east side of the county, she said.

"We are not fully stocked yet, but we will be soon," DeSoto said.

The trailer has been in place for two weeks. Responding to hazardous material incidents is quicker now with the trailer on site, rather than having to wait for Grants Fire Department, which previously had the only hazmat trailer, to respond, she said.

Cubero VFD is always looking for volunteers, as most volunteer fire departments are, and DeSoto invites anyone with an interest to contact her at 552-6964.

— To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin@blackmesa-isp.net.