The Albion-Little River Fire Volunteer Fire Department is the only emergency agency based within its 40 square mile response area and thus is first to answer all fire, medical aid, and rescue 911 calls. The all- volunteer department operates nine trucks out of five stations, which are scattered along approximately fifty miles of public roads. There are about 2,000 permanent residents within the response area and at any given time there may be double that number of visitors to the area's numerous inns, restaurants, beaches and parks. Active membership is usually around 25 firefighters and typically includes men and women of diverse backgrounds, united in this most fundamental task of helping their neighbors and visitors to the area.

Albion, on the Mendocino Coast was founded as a mill town in the 1860's. Sawmills in those days were extremely vulnerable to fire and Albion's was no different. The huge saws were powered by steam, generated in wood-burning boilers, much of the heavy machinery ran on crude bearings that were always subject to overheating, the buildings were built of light wood and the grounds were jam-packed with lumber, sawdust, wood trimmings and other flammables. Further steam-powered (and later on gasoline-powered) equipment, both stationary and mobile, was scattered about among all of this. As if this mix wasn't enough to give a firefighter nightmares, the whole facility was criss-crossed by a narrow-gauge steam railroad, and railroads in those days were rolling fire-starters. Taken as a whole it's amazing that these mills could run a single day without bursting into flame, and in fact fire was a regular occurrence. In order to survive, the mills organized and equipped their own substantial fire brigades which aggressively attacked all fires, thus keeping most of them from becoming conflagrations. Nevertheless, major fires were not rare and in Albion, over the years, the entire mill complex burned to the ground several times .

The towns surrounding many of these North Coast mills were comprised almost entirely of mill workers and their families, and so any fire in the surrounding area was dealt with by the mills' fire departments. This worked well, and in fact small towns near sawmills generally enjoyed a much greater degree of fire protection than most other early Western American settlements. In places like Albion, there was no need to duplicate what the local mill was providing.

Outside events changed all of this, beginning with the economic collapse of 1929. Mills all over Northern California closed abruptly - in many cases in the middle of what had been just an ordinary day - never to reopen. Workers, including firefighters, were permanently laid off and the majority of them left the area. Those who stayed on had no organized fire protection of any kind, nor any equipment, and when a fire struck it could only be attacked by summoning the neighbors and establishing an old-fashioned and usually futile bucket-brigade. Eventually, after the depression and World War II ended, some coastal towns formed or re-activated long dormant fire departments, but many little hamlets, such as Albion, simply didn't h ave the resources to do likewise.

This situation prevailed in Albion until 1959. For three decades the residents of the village and the ridges behind it had only themselves and their neighbors to draw on when there was a fire. Mendocino's fire department, revived after the war, was available to help but was a long way off (the roads and bridges then were not what they are today); by the time an engine from Mendocino could reach Albion the fire was usually over, one way or another. Meanwhile, economic conditions improved somewhat as logging, fishing and ranching again became profitable, and the population slowly increased, though the mill never reopened and there were still far fewer people in the area than in the early decades of the century. Along with more people came, inevitably, more fires and finally in 1959 a group of long-time residents decided that a fire department was urgently needed.

There being no government body willing or able to help with the formation or equipping of a new fire department, the Albion residents pooled their own resources and purchased a seven- year old pickup truck and mounted a gasoline-powered pump, a water tank and a hose-reel into its bed. At the same time they formed an all-volunteer fire department, comprised of about a dozen men. Dispatch was by audible siren and a "telephone tree." About two years later the pickup was augmented by a small tank truck, also with its own pump & hose reel. It may seem that such feeble equipment would have been of little real use, but every firefighter knows the value of a quick attack on a fire while it's still small and these light, relatively fast vehicles, staffed by dedicated volunteers, made a huge difference in the outcome of most fires in the community.

In those first years a dozen or so calls per year was the norm. Today, forty years later, the Albion - Little River Volunteer Fire Department responds to ten times as many calls, with nine trucks housed in five stations. However, in principle it remains the same - neighbors helping neighbors.