After a long hard day of fighting fire, digging hand lines and carting injured skiers off of the ski hill, firefighters at the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District sit down to a hearty meal of ... pork stir fry and healthy brown rice.

Not steak, burgers or loads of red meat and potatoes.

For Capt. Chris Magenheimer, head chef of the fire district’s B-shift, healthy cuisine is the name of the game.

“You used to see big red steaks, hamburgers, stuff like that,” Magenheimer said. “Cooking healthy is the thing now, we try to get everyone eating healthy because we’re pretty active.”

Magenheimer was whipping up the stir fry Monday night for the three B-shift personnel at Station 13 on State Highway 431, himself, engineer Tom Andrews and firefighter/ paramedic Scott Burgess.

Andrews said the unhealthy eating stopped a few years ago when the fire district paired with the Tahoe Forest Hospital System and started getting advice from a dietitian.

“We’ve got this wellness program now where we have to write down everything you eat for a three-day stretch, it makes you think,” Andrews said.



Magenheimer made the transition to healthy foods by substituting chicken and turkey into firehouse favorites like taco recipes which previously called for ground beef.

Speaking of tacos, Andrews and Magenheimer agreed the Mexican dish is a favorite among NLTFPD personnel and an easy dish to make for the 11 other firefighters present when making dinner at Station 11 in Incline.

Each also agreed firefighter Bruce Toy, despite his small frame, puts away the most tacos of any firefighter.

Magenheimer said he tries to keep all of his meals at about $5 per plate when he buys them at Raley’s once per day during his shift’s 48-hour guard over Incline.

Popular menu items include the aforementioned tacos, lasagna, spaghetti and soups and stews in the wintertime.

“I like to fall back on the basic stuff, especially when I’m cooking for eight or nine guys,” Magenheimer said. “But I’ll try something different every once in awhile, the stir fry, tamale pies, stuff like that.”

Burgess said he’s happy to eat whatever Magenheimer comes up with, and Andrews seconded.

“I’m happy with whatever I get, because I’m not a cook, if I was in charge we’d all have TV dinners,” Andrews said.

Magenheimer said he fell into being the cook for B shift, not because of any secret firefighter-cookoff or a line of succession, but because he, well, can cook.

“After a while guys notice you can do it well and you just start cooking, plus, there aren’t that many guys that cook,” Magenheimer said. “The best part is you don’t have to do the dishes.”

Magenheimer, taught to cook by his mother as a youngster, said he’s just a basics kind of guy. He, Andrews and Burgess agreed the real gourmet chef at the NLTFPD is C-shifter Rick Johnson.

“Johnson is the gourmet, he’s always putting together some really fancy stuff,” Andrews said.

Another name which surfaced multiple times for his favorite way to dress up a meal was firefighter/ paramedic Randy “Mushroom Soup” Robison, for his liberal use of the fungus stew on nearly everything.

Soups go out the window in the summer, though, as the firefighter’s union chipped in for outdoor barbecues at all three NLTFPD stations.

The barbecues used to be a welcomed sight for firefighters returning from wildland fire camps.

That’s where firefighters, for the first 48 hours of a fire, were expected to be self-sufficient and eat Army-issued Meals Ready to Eat.

“Everything we used to have in the MREs were cold,” Andrews said. “You couldn’t wait to get back to firehouse cooking.”

But, Magenheimer pointed out, MREs have come a long way and now contain self-heating packets and a dessert.

They even contain a tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce. The bottle pales in comparison to the collection of hot sauces at Station 13.

Andrews opens the refrigerator door to a heat-addicts dream world, an entire rack of hot sauces fit for who else but firefighters.

“Let’s see, there’s some Tapatio in here, some Tabasco, all sorts of hot sauces, some guys really like to sweat when they eat,” Andrews said as he gazed at the nine-bottle collection of hot sauce.

The firefighters generally do breakfast and dinner on their own, scavenging leftovers from the previous night, Magenheimer said, but gathering for dinner is a trend that has re-emerged in the last few years.

“We all try to eat as a shift,” Magenheimer said. “It’s like a family meal, and that’s

pretty much what we are here.”