Atop the aerial ladder of a bright red fire engine, a firefighter wrangles a hose. From the spout pours not water but syrup, pumped from an enormous bottle. The stream of viscous liquid is aimed at a giant stack of pancakes 9 feet high.
“Pancake Breakfast” is one of the dozens of floats expected to roll through Pasadena on New Year’s Day in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. It was built by volunteers from Sierra Madre, a small foothill town that narrowly escaped the worst of the Eaton fire, which destroyed swaths of Altadena in January.
The design is meant to honor first responders and their role in protecting the town, referencing the community pancake breakfasts that for decades have been a common practice in many towns and cities to raise funds for equipment, training, and fire safety programs while also helping to build ties between residents and firefighters.
But some residents in Altadena have said the design — and particularly the audio feature, in which a firefighter asks for more syrup — is upsetting, because during the destructive fires many hydrants in their neighborhood ran dry.
“To depict anything where we are running out of liquid is maybe a little tone-deaf this year,” Shawna Dawson Beer, the author of a community blogabout Altadena, told Fox 11.
“I think unfortunately this speaks to something that we fire survivors have experienced all year and that is a lot of action being taken on our behalf,” Beer said. “Ultimately, all of these folks with the best intentions and biggest hearts just need to actually talk to the survivors.”
Three active-duty firefighters from Sierra Madre will be standing atop the float on the day of the parade, she said.
“I really regret that anyone had any distress over the float,” Shaffer said, adding that she felt that not all the information shared on social media was “fully accurate” and that descriptions of the float’s audio did not capture the whimsical tone.
She said that, in response to criticism in recent days, the audio dialogue had been removed.
“We don’t want anyone upset. This was not our intent. We took all the dialogue off,” Shaffer said. “So now you have the lovely glugging of the syrup on the soundtrack. That’s it.”
Shaffer said members of the association vote each year on some 40 float design submissions that are in line with a theme put forth by Tournament of Roses officials. The theme of the 137th Rose Parade is “The Magic in Teamwork.”
It’s one of only five floats in the upcoming Rose Parade that are built by volunteers from the communities sponsoring them.
“We are very proud of the design because it’s an homage to our first responders,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer said she hoped the changes made would allow people to enjoy the float.
Lead builder of the float, Kurt Kulhavy, told KCRW last weekthat the aim of the design was to honor firefighters without re-traumatizing those who lost homes and loved ones. They opted for a lighthearted approach.
News of the controversy online spurred some to speak up in favor of the design.
“I was [a]ffected by the fires. Im not offended. There are much bigger issues in the world. I think the float is cute. Geez,” one Instagram user commented.
But a member of the Sierra Madre float association, Dave Andrews, said in a post on Facebook last week that he was not a fan of the design and did not vote for it because it “seemed inappropriate.”
He said he had been dismayed when he later heard the soundtrack of what he described as a “fake fire call” in which a fire engine is being dispatched to a pancake breakfast because they are running out of syrup, and that he and others had raised concerns to the board.
In a post on Sunday, he applauded the float association for removing the dialogue.
“Even though some people perceive [me] as the bad guy for speaking my mind, I respect them for making a compassionate choice,” Andrews said. “Bravo to Sierra Madre for listening.”
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