Our Town: Long-time firefighter and restaurant owner returns to Barstow fire district

Staff photo by Aaron Aupperlee Fire Capt. Nick DiNapoli, right, watches as firefighters Bobby Clemmer, middle, and Carlos Topete, cook dinner on Saturday night at the fire station.

By AARON AUPPERLEE, staff writer BARSTOW — On Oct. 30, 1996, on-duty firefighter Nick DiNapoli rolled by his restaurant, The Firehouse, with his fire truck just to check on it. He said that night he had an eerie feeling. Twenty-four hours later, the Firehouse was on fire. “It could have been my fire. It would have been my fire 24 hours ago,” DiNapoli said. “It should have been my fire.” The fire gutted the restaurant. He said watching his restaurant burn that night, Oct. 31, 1996, was like watching his life end. He lost one passion that night, his restaurant, and had to quit his other, the fire service. “I left because I had to, because of the fire,” he said. “After I left, I was depressed for a year.” But DiNapoli bounced back, reopening the restaurant and recently rejoining the fire district full-time as a captain. When former Fire Capt. Eric Bennett left the district in August, DiNapoli showed interest in the position. He had been working as a paid call firefighter for the district and taking classes to hone his firefighting skills. His wife, Sandy, and the management staff at The Firehouse shuffled around a bit to make it possible for him to return to the district, and when the test for captain came up, DiNapoli took it, and passed. “What an honor,” DiNapoli said. “It’s the greatest job in the world.” District Chief Darrell Jauss is also pleased to have DiNapoli back on the force. Before the restaurant fire made him leave the district, DiNapoli had been a Barstow firefighter for 14 years. After he left, he served on the board and would show up to volunteer around the station. “He knows the town better than anyone,” Jauss said. “He brings us many years of not just fire experience, but fire experience in Barstow.” DiNapoli, who came to Barstow from Brooklyn when he was a kid, started with the Barstow fire district in 1982. He cannot remember her name, but he said a nice old lady told him one day that she thought he would make a great firefighter, and as part of state program to give opportunities to low-income kids, DiNapoli joined the ranks. Still a kid, 19 years old, DiNapoli worked with firefighters who had been with the district since the 1940s and 1950s who learned from the firefighting pioneers of the turn of the century. He looked up to them, learned how to be a firefighter and a man, he said. “You had guys who learned how to be a firefighter from an incredible source, from when they had nothing,” he said. “I love the old school way. I liked what they stood for, the pride and ownership.” Now as a captain, responsible for the other, usually younger, firefighters on his engine, DiNapoli tries to pass on some of the wisdom he absorbed from his early days as a firefighter, whether it be firefighting instincts, life lessons or making sure a firefighter cuts the vegetables properly while cooking dinner. His exposure to the history of firefighting planted the seed for his Italian restaurant, The Firehouse, where he blended his nostalgia for old school firefighting — the helmets, the badges, the brass nozzles and photographs of horse-drawn fire wagons — with old style Italian food — the pasta, pizza and meatballs he grew up with as a child in Brooklyn. Throughout his career, whether as a firefighter or restaurant owner, DiNapoli has seen the two intersect. He said it is all about service. “You show concern for your fellow man, whether your bringing him a plate of pasta or putting out his fire,” he said. “And maybe we can make a difference in their moment of tragedy or loss.”