How A Retired Firefighter Turned A Single Used Engine Into Unforgettable Parties

What happens when a 39-year LA City firefighter retires, buys a decommissioned engine, and invites families to climb aboard? A simple idea turns into Smokey’s Fire Truck Events—a word-of-mouth phenomenon where real firefighters turn birthdays, weddings, and neighborhood nights into bright, humming memories. We sit down with founder Curt Wasserman to unpack how a single used engine, a safety-first mindset, and a deep love of service evolved into a 32-year run that keeps parents grinning and kids wide-eyed.

Curt shares the behind-the-scenes reality of running unique events with authentic crews: why he only hires firefighters, what it takes to retrofit the hose bed for safe seating, and how maintaining these machines taught him more about engines than decades on shift ever did. We explore the moments that define the brand—three and four-year-old's seeing the world from the top deck, a well-timed siren, and the photos that become the family’s favorite keepsakes. He also opens up about demand dynamics: no ads, a banner on the rig, bookings driven by neighbors who witnessed the joy, and a 12-week lead time that reflects how fast these events fill.

The conversation travels beyond birthdays. Think Indian wedding baraats when hotels say no to elephants, holiday parades through Ladera Ranch that glow after dark, bachelorette arrivals, concert drop-offs, and film shoots that crave the wow factor only a real engine delivers. We even detour into firehouse lore—why Dalmatians were the original crowd-clearers for horse-drawn pumpers—and how a station mascot named Smokey inspired the company name. It’s a tour through community, craft, and the power of doing one thing so well that the neighborhood won’t stop talking.

If you love stories about local businesses built on authenticity, safety, and delight, you’ll feel right at home here. Hit follow, share this with your favorite party-planner, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find us. What would you celebrate on a fire engine?

Transcript

Meet Smokey’s Fire Truck Events

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Rachel Fife.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Well, welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Now, if you are looking to throw a smoking hot party, well, that resource is closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Kurt Wasserman, with Smokey's Fire Truck Events. Kurt, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

It's going good. Good morning, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Well, listen, we are excited to learn about your business. So tell us all about Smokies.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Sure. So I am a retired LA City firefighter paramedic for 39 years. I retired two years ago. Everybody that works for me are real firefighters, and we buy fire engines when they're about 15 to 18 years old. And then we modify the tops where the hose goes and we put seating there so about 18 to 20 people can ride. And we're the only business where you could actually ride a fire engine. Now, technically, you're not supposed to ride red lights and siren. Um, we may take a little bit of advantage of that from here to there, but it's a really fun time. We're the only ones that do it. We've been in business for 32 years. We've had 56 kids that we've done birthdays for that have sent me back pictures that are now real firefighters. Uh, one thing I always tell parents are as much fun as the kids have, the parents have more fun than the kids do.

What Makes The Rides Unique

SPEAKER_02 1:31

I love that. Now, how did how did you get into doing this? I mean, I'm thinking because you were an ex-firefighter, but how did you get this business going?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I had five kids, and I started thinking, oh my gosh, I gotta start worrying about college. And I had a chance to buy a used fire engine, and we used to do fire service day at my fire station. And of course, we can't give rides on the you know on our fire engines for the city because of liability. So we brought the fire engine, gave free fire engine rides, and it was a big hit. And I started thinking, God, you know, maybe we could do uh maybe we could do birthdays and events out of this and on a whim. I just kind of tried it and we started growing and growing and growing.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I love that. I love that. Now, are there any myths or or misconceptions in your industry that you're doing?

The Origin Story And Growth

SPEAKER_01 2:18

No, I mean it's you know, the the thing is, you know, fire engines are expensive, they're really expensive to fix. Matter of fact, I learned more about fire engines when I was a firefighter. I learned more after buying fire engines because when you're paying the bill to get them fixed, your learning curve changes a lot. I just thought it'd be a fun thing. No one else does it. We're kind of unique. It's a hard business to do because the fire engines are expensive to fix and they are expensive. But you know, I've learned a lot about them and it's a lot of fun. And like I said, we just keep on doing them. Um, and it's you know, brings kind of good karma. Everybody has a fun time. And uh we we normally have you know great reviews from everybody, and um, that's kind of how it all went. And it and at first we're thinking, God, it sounds so simple. You you know, you show up with a fire engine, give rides, but everybody gets a big kick out of it because you're sitting up high on the top of the hose bed where our seating is, it's almost like being on a double decker bus. Our it's we do a wide variety of ages, but our biggest age is three to four years old. About 70% of our birthdays are three and four year olds. And then we generally tell parents if they're two years old to wait to three that two to three makes a big difference. Now, there are a couple negatives about using us for a business, and that is you're gonna have some moms, especially Orange County moms that are pretty competitive on birthdays, you know, they're gonna come back and go, Well, little Johnny can't stop talking about your your birthday. Now, how am I gonna beat that? Uh, you will become the hit and you will set the standard for the the hottest birthday around.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

I love that. Well, you know, we know marketing is like the hit the the heart of every business. So, how are you finding your customers out there?

Costs, Challenges, And Joy

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Believe it or not, we throw a banner on our fire engine and it's all word of mouth. We have never ever advertised. Every once in a while, we'll get put a parents, you know, um, little, you know, leaflet that goes around the neighborhood and they'll find out. It's all word of mouth. I would say that I think we're about 84% of the people that we do birthdays for, we end up doing a second birthday. And I have one little boy that we're doing, actually, he's not a little boy anymore. We're going back for his seventh birthday, and his parents are like, Oh my gosh, can you pick something other than Smokey's fire engines? But he that's what he wants.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

That's wonderful. Now, have you ever thought of doing your own podcast or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

You know, we've we've had different ideas of just we're so busy doing the birthdays, and I still have five kids, and I got a youngest one. My oldest son's an LA City firefighter, my youngest one's in college thinking about being a firefighter. So I stay pretty busy. This is kind of a first for me, and I'm you know, hopefully those will give us some extra business because we can always, you know, use a little more, but we do stay pretty busy and we are unique. So I we only I only have firefighters that work for me. So I have a lot of retired guys, you know, they still want to ride the fire engine, so you know, they get a big kick out of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

That's wonderful. Well, now outside of work, what do you like to do for fun, Kurt?

Ages, Impact, And Parent Reactions

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Uh, you know, I've got my commercial pilots license, so I like to fly, and then I I also like boating. Of course, I've gotten back into that now that my kids are uh finally grown up, and uh I only have I have two left in college, and they've only got one's got a year left and one's got half a year, so I'm almost done with that. And uh between the business and trying to stay current on my flying, that's kind of the biggest stuff that goes on. I do have one for you that I think people will find kind of interesting. Do you know why Dalmatians are fire dogs? No. Are you curious? Absolutely. So back in the days when they used to push the pumpers by horses, people would run in front of the horses, would scare them, and they crashed a lot. The Dalmatians could run fast enough in front of the horses, they would bark and chase people off the street. They could run in between the horses and not get trampled, and they used to like to sleep with the horses and kept them calm. And that's why Dalmatians are fire dogs. Our name that we came up with, Smokey's, is because when I was stationed at Fire Station 69 Pacific Palisades, the public gave us a Dalmatian named Smokey. And I thought Smokey was such a cool name and such a cool dog that that's why we're Smokey's fire engines.

Word Of Mouth Marketing

SPEAKER_02 6:19

I love that. Well, tell us, um, Kurt, please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Smokey's fire truck events.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

One thing remember about it?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Oh, you're you're it's it's you're gonna have memories for a lifetime of pictures. I mean, it's it's it's it's just a lot of fun. Uh, we always tell and parents, we have a lot of parents that do this. We always tell them we do birthdays, hey, bring your Christmas outfits and put change into them because we have a lot of people that will use us for birthday, and it makes such a great backdrop for doing uh Christmas cards. The other thing that we do that's really big down on Ladera Ranch, which goes nuts for Christmas, we do all through December, we parade the neighborhood and we do Christmas lights at night.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Now we also do, believe it or not, we get a lot of Indian weddings because they like to come in on elephants, but a lot of the hotels won't allow them. So they like so it Indian men like coming with their wedding party on our fire engines. We do bachelorette parties, we've taken people to concerts, they use it like a limo for something different. So we get a lot of unique stuff. Plus, we you know, we do a lot of movies and music videos and things like that.

Team Of Real Firefighters

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Wonderful. Also, well, how can our listeners learn more about Smokey's fire truck events?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So you basically can just give me a call and uh we can talk about it where because price depends on where your city is. We basically serve from LA County to Orange County. We do go down to about San Clemente. Sometimes I'll go a little further, but that's kind of the area that we do. We do recommend that you try to book us about 12 weeks in advance. We turn down more people than we can book at the moment, and um, that's probably the biggest things other than I can tell you. I have never had I've never had anybody say, Oh my god, this wasn't fun. It it always beats their expectations, and it sounds so simple, but it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

I love that. Well, Kurt, I really appreciate you being on the show, and we wish you and Smoky's Fire Trucks event all the best moving forward.

Hobbies And Life Beyond Work

SPEAKER_01 8:18

I appreciate that. I'll give you my last thing. Do you know what firefighters and police officers have in common? No, they all want to be firefighters.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Well, you guys have a thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpoorangecounty.com. That's gnporangecounty.com or call 714 941 2862.