Firefighting family
Pelfrey and kin have tradition of local service
If you happen to ask Assistant Chief Donald Pelfrey, of the newly-formed County Line Fire Department, about which fire departments his family members work for or have worked for, it is best to have pen and paper handy, because the Wellton family’s connections to firefighting run deep.
“It’s something in the blood, I guess,” said Pelfrey, who started with the Wellton Fire Department in 1997 after graduating from Antelope High School. “I rode in a fire truck to a haystack fire one day while I was hanging out at the station. I was hooked from that moment on.”
For starters, there are Palfrey’s three brothers: Justin, Cody and Colt.
“All I do is put the wet stuff on the hot stuff,” Justin said.
Justin has joined Donald at the County Line Fire Department, and both Cody and Colt work for the City of Yuma Fire Department.
“Cody and Colt absolutely love their jobs with the Yuma Fire
Department. That is where they both wanted to be and they believe they are in the best place,” Pelfrey said. “The Phoenix Fire Department could come ask them to come to work for them and they would both say no. They love Yuma.”
Recognized as the Paramedic of the Year in 2017, brother Cody is a firefighter/paramedic on the A-shift at Fire Station #3, which is located at 508 E. 25th St., and where the firefighters are known as “the Bulldogs.”
“He started hanging out with me at the Tacna Fire Department when he was 10 years old,” Pelfrey said “We had him washing trucks and doing all the jobs we didn’t want to do.”
Prior to being hired at the Yuma Fire Department, Cody worked part-time for Tri-Valley Ambulance.
Cody, who was also assigned to be the paramedic for President Donald Trump during his August 2017 visit to Yuma, added that he remembers when he graduated from elementary school one of his teachers gave him back a paper he had written in second grade about wanting to be a firefighter.
“I guess I had to be true to my second-grade self,” he said laughingly. “I can’t picture myself doing anything else.”
Pelfrey’s youngest brother, Colt, who also started hanging out at the Tacna Fire Department as soon as he was old enough, is currently assigned to Station #4, where he works on the B-shift as a firefighter/EMT and hazmat tech.
After spending some time as a volunteer with the Wellton Fire Department, Colt was hired by the Rural/Metro Fire Department. After about a year, he went to the San Luis Fire Department, where he worked as a firefighter, until recently being hired by the Yuma Fire Department.
“Colt enjoyed his time with San Luis, working under Fire Chief Hank Green,” Pelfrey said. “He couldn’t have asked for someone better to learn from.”
Then there was Pelfrey’s father, Don, who was one of the original 16 firefighters who formed the Wellton Volunteer Fire Department. His uncle, Curtis Jones, was also the Fire Chief of the Wellton Fire Department for 10 years.
Another uncle, Jerry Jones, retired from the Yuma Fire Department as an engineer following a 20year career. A cousin, Matt Matlock, also retired from the Yuma Fire Department after 20 years.
There was also another cousin, Harley “Tex” Williams, who worked for the Yuma Fire Department, but Palfrey wasn’t sure of the dates.
Finally, there is Pelfrey’s step-daughter Taylor Rickher, who is a certified EMT. Although she is still attending college, she could, if she chooses to do so, go to work for one of the area’s many fire departments.
“We are definitely a fire family, that is for sure,” Pelfrey said.
Needless to say, when the Pelfrey brothers all get together their conversation usually revolves around work, or more specifically, the type of calls they have been on.
“The first question I always ask them is, any good calls?” Pelfrey said.
While it may seem strange to talk about such a stressful topic, Pelfrey said one of the good thing about having other firefighters in the family is that it is a way for them to unwind and get things off their chests.
“I probably did about 20 snake removals the year when I was with the Tacna Fire Department,” Pelfrey said “I was pretty much the snake go-to guy.”
Pelfrey said the strangest call he ever responded to happened a few years ago on Avenue 40E, at the off ramp for Interstate 8, where he had to wrestle a pig off the freeway.
Apparently, a 4-H truck was transporting a load of pigs from California to Phoenix, and one escaped when the driver stopped.
“Dispatch called me and said the deputy had asked for me specifically, and to bring a rope,” Pelfrey said. “But he didn’t say why.”
When Pelfrey got on seen he saw what he described as a big black pig, which probably weighed about 150 pounds, standing on the side of the freeway.
“It probably took us a good two hours to rope that thing up,” Pelfrey said. “You would be surprised how fast a pig can run.”
One of the most tragic onthe-job stories Palfrey has shared, however, involved the death of one of his close friends, State Trooper Timothy Huffman, who was killed on May 6, 2013 after a fuel tanker truck slammed into several vehicles at an accident scene near Wellton.
Huffman, 47, was sitting inside his patrol vehicle writing a report on the accident scene when the crash occurred.
Pelfrey, who was with the Tacna Fire Department at the time, said that he had been asked to help look for one of the patient’s hearing aids. Moments later the crash involving the tanker truck happened.
His brother Cody, who was a EMT for Tri-Valley ambulance at the time, was also on scene.
Now, it looks as thought some of his children will be following in their father’s footsteps. Pelfrey said his two oldest boys, who are 16 and 15 years old, are already hanging around the County Line Fire Station.
“They are also doing the work we don’t want to, like washing the fire trucks and cleaning fire hoses, which is the worst job in the world,” Palfrey said. “That is the way it works. You have to work your way up.”
Even his youngest two boys have told him they want to be firefighters. His other boy, however, wants to get into law enforcement, which is also fine with Pelfrey.
“I was in the Yuma County Sheriff Office’s Explorers Program all through high school,” Pelfrey said.
James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 5396854. Find him on Facebook at www. Facebook.com/YSJamesGilbert or on Twitter @YSJamesGilbert.