Corena LeDonne, a firefighter with the Chevron Richmond Refinery, takes us through her typical day – a day that’s anything but typical.
Growing up, Corena LeDonne was hooked on the TV drama, Emergency!, which featured firefighters serving as paramedics. Back then, she had no idea how closely her real life would resemble her favorite show.
Corena has been a Chevron employee for 28 years and a firefighter with the Chevron Richmond Refinery for the last 16.
In California’s Bay Area, the region that’s home to Chevron’s corporate headquarters, Chevron is the only refinery with a full-time fire crew, additionally supported by a volunteer fire brigade. This means that the Chevron crew – on a typical shift that’s the captain, the lieutenant, a firefighter, a battalion chief and a dispatcher – responds to incidents not only at Chevron’s refinery but at any refinery in the region. And as a 24/7 refinery, the crew is always on stand-by.
She started her career with Chevron as a mail clerk in 1988, and later became a lab technician in the Richmond Refinery. It was her good friend, and one of the current chiefs of the department, that piqued Corena’s interest in the fire department and encouraged her to join. During her research center role, she spent her days in the lab and her evenings in fire science classes, keeping her goal of becoming a firefighter in sight. She also volunteered with the department before coming aboard full-time. Looking back on her journey, she can’t imagine doing anything else.
Refinery firefighters carry a big responsibility, to Chevron, to the Richmond community and to fellow Bay Area firefighters. From managing hot work permits, which are needed when a job contains any type of spark such as welding, answering medical calls, and even saving lives on the job – Corena is always prepared for her typical day – and each day is anything but typical.
Corena once had to perform CPR on an employee who had stopped breathing. She and her crew revived him, and subsequently visited him during his recuperation; he is now back to work.
One of Corena’s recreational passions is boating, so she jumped at the opportunity to introduce a fire boat to the department and train the crew on its use. Prior to Chevron having their own boat, the department collaborated with the U.S. Coast Guard or the Richmond Fire Department if an incident occurred. The fireboat is used mostly for security rounds for the tankers, but is also outfitted to respond to any type of fire on the water – and having their own boat makes the crew more nimble in response in these situations.