BRIAN BABCOCK
San Jose Mercury News


After four decades of saving lives and putting out fires, Santa Clara County Fire Department Capt. Bill Morrison will be donning his uniform for the last time at the end of this month. Morrison will officially hang up his helmet on July 30.

The decision wasn't easy.

"It's hard. I've been here for 40 years. It's going to be a complete lifestyle change," said Morrison, who won the Saratoga Fire District Firefighter of the Year Award in 2000.

But Morrison said he wants to retire before he severely injures himself. He's known too many firefighters who have chronic back issues or knee problems or caught some type of disease on a call.

"I want to be sure that I can still do things after I retire instead of just being bedridden," he said.

While many young boys grow up daydreaming about becoming firefighters, Morrison says the thought didn't cross his mind. But his mother disagrees.

"My mom keeps telling me that I always wanted to become a firefighter," he said, "but I don't remember saying that."

Morrison's mother and father are two other reasons why he is retiring.

"They took care of me when I was a kid, and I want to be sure that I'm there for them," he said.

Morrison became involved in firefighting in 1970 while attending Saratoga High School. He said he was hanging out with a friend when they noticed another teenager with a burn mark on his back. When they asked him how he had been burned, the teenager told them he was part of the Saratoga Fire District's fire explorer program.

Morrison was interested and joined the program. Six years later he was hired by the district as a firefighter and has been in the fire service ever since.

It's the love of helping people that has kept him coming back all these years, he said.

"When people call 911, they may not know what to do, so we want to be there to help them solve their problems. And that's what we do," Morrison said.

"The neatest thing about my job is that in addition to working in Saratoga, I live in Saratoga. I only live five minutes away and I love coming to work. There are few jobs in the United States that you can say that you love coming to work," he added.

But there are some drawbacks of living in the town that you work in, especially when you're in the public safety sector, Morrison said.

"The hard part about working in a town that you live in is that you're responding to calls from people you know. And it's hard to work on them when they're having a heart attack. But they have a reassuring look on their face, like, 'I know this guy. I feel better because of it,' " Morrison said, adding that he has always worried about receiving a call for help from his parents' home.

Although Morrison loves the work he does, he said that the job isn't easy, since it requires a willingness to run into a building while everyone else is running out.

"You have to be able to put up with the sights, the sounds and the smells of the service," he said. "A lot of people see a car accident and they don't want to look at it, while for us, instead of looking away from it, we're getting in the middle of it."

The memories of those calls stick in a firefighter's mind.

"Some of the calls are just bad. You want to forget about them, but you just don't. Like the people in auto accidents that get killed or someone who has a heart attack and dies. Those are the ones that stick in your mind. You want to get rid of the memory but you just can't. It's always with you," he said.

There are many more good memories, Morrison said. But one event that sticks out as a positive for him has been the Saratoga Fire District's transition into the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

Morrison said that as the community grew over the years, the fire district didn't have enough equipment or people for the calls. But now Saratoga firefighters can call for a back-up engine when theirs are all out on calls.

Morrison said he is also proud that the county fire department is nationally accredited, which few departments in the country can say.

Morrison is one of three Saratoga Fire District captains to be retiring this year. Hal Netter, who has been with the district for 30 years, and Don Nelson, who has been with the district for 29 years, are the other two.

Morrison has high praise for his fellow captains, calling them great men and professionals.

"I'm glad we're all going out together because we all have a history with the department," he added. "It's not going to be the same anymore because people don't tend to stay in the same place for more than five or six years."

For Morrison, there was no other place he wanted to be than Saratoga.

"I love the community," he said. "I love living here and I loved working here. I didn't want to go anywhere else."

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July 19, 2010