Hot Dates

CANOGA PARK —  Usually they’re paid to extinguish flames, but a dozen photogenic firemen lately have been igniting a few in certain rib cages.

Their means of combustion is a glossy 1998 calendar, “L.A. Firefighters: Authentic Heroes,” that shows them in workday settings, often sweat-slicked, smoke-smudged and water-spattered. Some smile out in perfect dentition. Others gaze into the middle distance, looking stoic and yearning. One has a fire ax slung across his shoulders.

“Omigod, the women love it,” says Stephanie Knizek, executive director of the Canoga Park-based Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, which will receive all net proceeds from the $15 calendars. “We’ve had some really cute calls from people as they order them. From their voices, they’re not buying it to help us; it doesn’t sound like that’s the moving force. The moving force is those cute guys.”

Although the calendar hasn’t received widespread publicity, the nonprofit foundation has sold about 1,800 of 7,500 printed. If all sell, the foundation, which assists burned people after they’ve healed from their injuries, will realize about $60,000.

The sales numbers are of special interest to L.A. County Firefighter Thomas Encinas, who fathered the calendar. The 35-year-old Encinas, a firefighter for nine years, put up $30,000 worth of tax refunds and credit-card cash advances to finance it.

Sales will have to double before Encinas breaks even and money flows to the foundation. In the meantime, he must content himself with appearing on the cover of the publication, and opposite the February page.

“I thought the benefits of a calendar would be twofold,” says Encinas, who works at County Station No. 164 in Huntington Park. “It would present firemen in a tasteful, professional manner; we’d come across as attractive, and at the same time raise money for a tremendous organization.”

So, two summers ago, Encinas sent fliers to city and county fire stations, and word-of-mouth messages to smaller departments. He and Hollywood designer Marilyn Frandsen, who donated her time, held casting calls at a Hollywood studio.

Over two mornings, 60 hopefuls showed up. Another 25 who were on duty at the time sent photos.

“What we wanted was an age range, young guys as well as guys in their 50s who were attractive or had some kind of magnetism or charisma,” Encinas says. “We also wanted a wide ethnic diversity.”

The dozen chosen include Anglos, Latinos and African Americans. “We were hoping to get some Asians, too, but ended up not getting any. One guy I especially had in mind just wasn’t able to,” he explains. “A lot of the guys’ initial reaction was very skeptical, because they know in the station they’re gonna get razzed.”

This being L.A., where good looks are akin to master’s degrees when it comes to employment possibilities, many of the men in the calendar have been in front of professional cameras before. Encinas has done television commercials for Diet Coke and Compaq computers, and had a small role in a 1995 gal-pals movie, “Live Nude Girls.”

“Nothing really tremendously successful,” he says. “Just a couple of dime jobs, basically.”

The most experienced is Firefighter-for-October Kendall McCarthy, a 45-year-old inspector who’s been with the L.A. city department for 22 years. McCarthy has appeared in more than 300 television commercials, as well as in print ads. He currently may be seen in commercials for MCI, Shell Oil, J.C. Penney Co., Motrin and Mercedes-Benz.

McCarthy, a married father of four, has been acting and modeling since 1970, but joined the Fire Department “because I wasn’t exactly making a million dollars at the time and needed to feed my family.”

“Even great actors don’t work very steadily. I might have a bad year, and my kids don’t have health insurance. Doing both is a burden, but I trade that for the security of knowing my family has a steady income. Even doing quite well, in acting you’re hired today and looking for a job tomorrow.”

Mario Cantacessi, Firefighter January, is on the opposite end of the spectrum. A 37-year-old bachelor who works as both firefighter and paramedic at County Station No. 6 in Lomita, Cantacessi never thought of himself as a model or entertainment-industry type.

“I just didn’t think I had the look or nothing,” he says. “I was satisfied by the picture, but surprised. I don’t think it looks like me, really. But it’s gotten a lot of positive feedback from family and friends.”

Hunky firefighter calendars aren’t a new idea in California. Firefighters--unlike, say, police officers, who must sometimes shoot people and hand out speeding tickets--are thoroughly benign figures. What’s not to like about them, especially the scenic ones?

“L.A. Firefighters” is the fourth such calendar McCarthy has appeared in over the past decade. The earlier calendars were commercial ventures that eventually dried up.

For a dozen years, the Orange County Burn Assn. sponsored a firefighter calendar called “FireFoxes.” The association held annual talent contests, attended by mostly female audiences, to raise money and select the next year’s calendar men. The calendars, which raised about $10,000 a year, typically showed a lot of bare torsos.

This year, however, the association discontinued the calendar, which was expensive to produce and distribute, in favor of autographed photos of the FireFoxes.

“We found over the years that, with the way the world is changing, this kind of calendar in the workplace just was not appropriate,” says association board member Anne Delgadillo.

“L.A. Firefighters,” however, is not a pictorial parade of beefcake. Of the models, only Encinas and Firefighter November, Dennis Cross of L.A. County Station No. 2 in Palos Verdes, show some pecs and abs. Everyone else appears fully clothed in work garments amid ordinary firefighting tackle.

“I’ve turned down a lot of different jobs I thought were cheesy,” says McCarthy, “but I was so happy when they asked me to do this that I jumped on it. Just to promote the Fire Department and the burn foundation is such a good thing, I couldn’t help but do this.”