The Muir Beach Volunteer Fire Department is moving one mile west from its historic headquarters in a century-old barn to a new prefabricated station two and a half times the size on a plot of land with a sweeping panorama of Mount Tamalpais. Last week, the Board of Supervisors approved $100,000 toward the project, closing a funding gap and boosting an effort 15 years in the making.

At about 1,000 square feet—the average size of a classroom—the current station is too small to hold equipment and the department’s two trucks, said Chris Gove, the department’s chief.

“We’ve really enjoyed being down there, but the fact is that half of our equipment is sitting outside and we have no real place to stay,” he told the Light. “This new station is going to be a huge benefit for us.”

This summer, the Muir Beach Volunteer Firemen’s Association will kick off a campaign to raise $600,000 more in order to outfit the new station with lockers, tools, generators, solar panels and other hardware that will “make our fire station whole in a way we’ve never had before,” Mr. Gove said. “We’ve been working on a deficit for so many decades, it would be nice to have a real firehouse.”

Muir Beach is the smallest of West Marin’s volunteer fire departments, its dozen volunteers serving a town of roughly 300 residents and 160 homes. According to Mr. Gove, the station gets between 80 and 100 calls a year, most related to injuries that happen within Muir Woods National Monument, which saw nearly 800,000 visitors in 2022. 

The current station, built as a creamery by a Portuguese rancher in the late 1800s, sits across Highway 1 from the Pelican Inn and has housed the headquarters for the department since its founding in 1970. The department leases the barn from the National Park Service, which designated the building as a historic structure in 2007. That status has prevented needed renovations.  

Because the barn is poorly ventilated and also home to coastal critters, trainings are conducted outside. The barn has no running water, so earlier this month, when toxic chemicals from treated wood had seeped into the fibers of the crews’ uniforms while fighting a structure fire, volunteers resorted to cleaning their uniforms in their homes. 

The new headquarters will be located at 87 Seacape Drive, across from the parking lot that leads to the Muir Beach overlook. It will be fitted with central heating, running water, two bay doors with ample space for both trucks, an emergency shower, a washer and dryer and a place for training exercises. 

For the last several years, the department has been stowing away excess funds to save up for the new headquarters. Plans for a station closer to the current one were thwarted in 2015, after environmental concerns prevented the department from receiving a coastal permit. The Seacape Drive site, where the department has a water tank, has belonged to the department for years. The project was awarded a coastal permit in 2021 and the department is hoping to have a building permit by the summer so its volunteers can be fully moved in by the end of the year. 

The Muir Beach Volunteer Firemen’s Association has raised $300,000 for the project and the department has saved $200,000 in funds from the Muir Beach Community Services District. Mr. Gove said the department wasn’t eligible for grants for construction and design due to the village’s high median annual income of $198,000. 

Except for Mr. Gove, who gets an annual stipend of $30,000, Muir Beach’s firefighters are all volunteers. The department evolved out of the Bello Beach Volunteer Fire Department, which charged a subscription to property owners who were members of the Bello Beach Club.

According to historical accounts, the Bello Beach department refused to respond to two home fires because the owners were not members of the club. “One outraged Muir Beach resident snatched the keys to the fire engine and raced to the scene of the second fire, but flames had already consumed the structure,” reads an account on the fire department’s website. 

Locals were livid and eventually formed their own department headed by a young John Sward, who collected rag tag equipment left over from the defunct Hamilton Airfield in Novato and bought one of the fire trucks from the Bello Beach department after it disbanded.

Initially focused solely on training for structure fires, Muir Beach volunteers now undergo extensive training to handle a range of emergencies, from wildfires and medical crises to mudslides and search and rescue operations. 

Mr. Sward, who worked as chief until 2012 and died in 2022, understood that the soul of the fire department rested in the whole community. In 1974, he founded a Memorial Day barbecue to raise funds for the department. This year marks the 50th anniversary, and Mr. Gove is hoping for a proper turnout on May 26. To learn more, go to http://www.muirbeachfire.com/bbq.html