Fire station dedicated to Maricopa’s original volunteers

Maricopa’s second and newest brick and mortar fire station, No. 571, is located just off Honeycutt Road on Porter Road. It was dedicated Friday afternoon in honor of three men, Don Pearce, Dwayne Hamilton and Eddie Rodriguez, who were instrumental in bringing fire prevention to Maricopa.

Don Pearce, a long time Fire District board member, began Maricopa’s all-volunteer fire department shortly after he moved to Maricopa in the early 1950s. He first saw Maricopa from the train when he was headed to California to visit his then girlfriend and now wife of some 60 years.

Pearce, who came to Maricopa originally to farm, ended up buying the NAPA auto parts store on the corner of John Wayne Parkway and the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway. Friday evening, at the Friends of the Library’s celebration of Maricopa history (see related story), he talked about the early days of firefighting in Maricopa.

“When something burned, there wasn’t much you could do about it except just watch,” said Pearce. “Dwayne Hamilton and I decided we needed to do something, so we took up a collection and got $1,000.”

He added that the pumper truck they needed cost $2,000, so Pearce put up the other half of the money as a loan. They bought the truck and, when tax monies came in the next year, Pearce was reimbursed.

Pearce, the chief of the department, had 15 community volunteers. They had about 30 calls per month, “but we saved a lot of homes and property,” Pearce noted.

Eddie Rodriguez, who was born and raised in Maricopa, worked at the NAPA store for Pearce during high school. He recalled that a fire call came in to the store, but no volunteers were available. “You’re going to a fire,” Pearce told Rodriguez.

“That was my first fire ever; it was quite something,” Rodriguez told those attending the heritage celebration. “I’ll never forget it.” That experience proved to be a career path when Rodriguez followed Pearce as chief of Maricopa’s volunteer fire department. Today he is the Deputy Fire Marshal for the city.

Rodriguez spoke proudly about the fire department, which today answers about 400 calls each month and has more than 60 firefighters.

“It was really an honor to have the station dedicated to us,” said Rodriguez.

Photo by Joyce Hollis