How It All Started

To fight a raging fire with a gardenhose is one of the most futile and hopeless endeavors imaginable. The residents of Abiquiu made this experience one time too often when the home of Procopio Maestas burned completely to the ground. They decided to build a fire station. This was about 30 years ago; the exact date isn't available any more. With donations from local residents including the late Georgia O'Keeffe, the first Abiquiu fire fighters under Chief Juan Lopez bought a Mac fire truck and built the current station on land loaned from the Abiquiu Land Grant. One year later, the sub-station in Medanales was constructed.

The next acquisition was a 1988 Ford fire truck to replace the Mack, and an old army truck equipped with a slip-on portable pump. At that time, communication was still a big problem, with fire fighters having to notify each other of an emergency via a phone tree. This changed dramatically when Jack Trujillo joined the department. Almost single-handedly, he established a sophisticated radio dispatch system which is still in use to this day and is continuously being updated.

Jack's son Phillip became a volunteer soon after his father did. He held the position of Assistant Chief at the Medanales substation and became Abiquiu's Fire Chief upon the retirement of Juan Lopez. When a bigger fire truck with larger capacity was purchased in 2002, the Ford was moved to Medanales.

(To be continued)