LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE

LIFEGUARD OPERATIONS

Hermosa Beach

Southern Section Headquarters

BACKGROUND

The City of Hermosa Beach established a lifeguard headquarters at the pier around 1926. At that time it was the Hermosa Beach Lifeguard Service. In 1936 Hermosa Mayor Logan Cotton asked Los Angeles County to assume lifeguard functions along Hermosa Beach because the city was being overwhelmed with beach patrons brought to the city from throughout L. A. County by the “Red Car” train. In effect the Hermosa Beach Lifeguards became the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Service. The Los Angeles County Fire Department Lifeguard Operations now covers 72 miles of coastline from San Pedro in the South to Malibu in the North.

Until 1972 the headquarters was located on the Hermosa/ Redondo border at the foot of Herondo St. behind where the Harbor Cove Apartments and the Chart House restaurant now stand. A new headquarters was then built on the South side of the Hermosa Beach Pier. The new building stands in the same footprint. The 3-phase Pier project has taken 6 years to complete and the new facility was under construction for 13 months. Los Angeles County contributed $1.9 million towards the project.

A few of the amenities added to the new Lifeguard Headquarters are:

Women's locker room, expanded lookout area, private bunk rooms for the 24-hour crews, observation deck, expanded medical treatment room, larger garage, dedicated communication room, and rescue boat storage.

It is the nation's largest ocean lifeguard organizations with over 100 full-time and 600 part-time or seasonal lifeguards. The headquarter building used to be the City of Los Angeles Lifeguard Headquarters until they were merged into the County System in 1975. The Los Angeles County Lifeguards safeguard 31 miles (50 km) of beach and 70 miles (110 km) of coastline, from San Pedro in the south, to Malibu in the north. Lifeguard Division employs 120 full-time and 600 seasonal lifeguards, operating out of three Sectional Headquarters, located in Hermosa, Santa Monica, and Zuma beach. Each of these headquarters staffs a 24-hour EMT-D response unit, and are part of the 911 system. In addition to providing for beach safety, Los Angeles County Lifeguards have specialized training for Baywatch rescue boat operations, underwater rescue and recovery, swiftwater rescue, cliff rescue, marine mammal rescue and marine firefighting.