Well this was in the mid to late 90s for me. The fire chief who I learned most of this stuff from definetly would of gotten the pre-79 version for most of it. He got his first cources through serving in the military and being a pilot in Air Crash/Rescue. First he was a Globemaster II pilot and then I know sometime before he did a couple tours in Nam he got swapped or volunteered for piloting Hueys and that's where he got most his Air Crash/Rescue training and also his training for piloting the LA Fire helicopters that were all hueys for the longest time, and I think they're still being used. And I learned from him about the triangle, nothing but the triangle. He never had anything positive to say about that "newfangled" tetrahedron, he said to always go by the triangle and that in extreme cases where you need to refer to or go by a tetrahedron to tell you something is out of the ordinary about a blaze then you probabley shouldn't be a first responder or even fighting it, lol.
Boy he was always a real character, the oldest man to request working a couple years straight at the rebuilt South Central house after the riots tore down the original one. He hated working with all the old farts a duffers that got the more laid back houses, hated dragging them out to do their job because they were getting lazy, old and content. Loved the young guys and recruits that got short-strawed into working at stations like the main South Central one, they'd jump outa bed in the middle of the night and be ready to rock n' roll even if it was a silly bandaid call or another sheered firehydrant by a DUI (crack has an especialy strong tendancy to attract abusing drivers twords yellow hydrants). His favorite of the lazy houses though was the one right next to Van Nuys airport, and it was my favorite one period, it's the one I would go out of my way to visit if he was working. Front half on the street is all normal 1-ladder, 2-pumper, and an ambulance bay with accomodations for full crew - back half was all the airport and runway emergency responce "trucks", and to call those things trucks is a HUGE understatement in the size and scale of those mega-rigs - then a short drive around the taxiway and north-end of the runway to get to the LA fire and rescue helicopter hangars and main maintenance hangar.
He always liked that I joked with him that I never understood how he went from flying something as sturdy and reliable as a 4-propped globemaster that was made to fly, to a huey that had only one-and-a-half props that was made for controlled falling-to-the-ground.
