SABINE PASS — Engineer Paul Courmier can recall a veteran fire captain’s assessment of holding watch over serene Sabine Pass. He likened it to being stationed at Pearl Harbor: “A nice place to be until something happens.”

That’s because Station 4, the Port Arthur Fire Department’s outpost in remote Sabine Pass, is about 11 miles past the oil refineries — well out of reach from quick assistance. If it happens in Sabine Pass, Station 4 owns it.

Work at Station 4 is a lot like work at stations in town … except when it isn’t. Station 4 handles fire calls and traffic wrecks and outdoor fires. They come with far less frequency than in the central city, where stations 1 and 8 are busiest. But they come nonetheless.

Vehicular wrecks might be the four-wheeler kind, especially at McFadden Beach, another 15 minutes or so south of Sabine Pass on Highway 87. That’s outside the city limits but Station 4 is closer than anyone else. Medical calls might be from roughhousing at the beach.

Because most buildings are on pilings — required by insurance — fires are generally like second-floor fires. Ambulances back in town might be 20 minutes from reaching all of those emergency scenes, so Station 4 goes in first.

Serious medical calls might include broken legs, car accidents or stroke. If patients can be flown to the hospital — helicopters might be dispatched from Beaumont or Louisiana or even Galveston — patients are transported by air.

Station 4 also assists with water accidents — the Fire Department has a dive team — or with incidents involving cattle, which the firefighters said are abundant at Sabine Pass.

And Sabine Pass has peculiar challenges that in-town stations don’t encounter as much. It’s been a bad year for wild pigs in Sabine Pass, the Station 4 crew said: Two firefighters have struck wild pigs in their private vehicles; once, the fire truck hit a pig.

As busy as Stations 1 and 8 can be, Courmier said, they get their share of mundane calls, too.

“That young man in front of you got a cat out of a tree a couple of months ago,” Courmier said, referring to firefighter William Merkelz who made a cat rescue from Station 8. Courmier said he took the call and asked the caller to repeat the message.

“It seemed so cliché,” he said.

But it was all in a shift’s work, Merkelz said. He made the rescue and a pet owner was pleased.

Nonetheless, Courmier, firefighter Michael Hawkins and Merkelz — they spent Christmas Day together on duty at No. 4 — say there are department veterans who prefer duty in Sabine Pass. Residents, who are tight-knit and resilient, are ever helpful and welcoming to the firefighters. Some delivered cookies and snacks for Christmas to the station.

Courmier, an 11-year-veteran, is regularly stationed there; Hawkins, with the department a year, and Merkelz, with the department more than three years, are assigned to stations wherever they are needed. On Christmas Day, they were needed in Sabine Pass.

Courmier, from Vidor, was missing Christmas Day on Wednesday with his wife and two children. So was Merkelz; he and his wife have five children in Kirbyville. Hawkins, of Beaumont, is single — “living the good life,” Courmier was quick to add.

Some department veterans prefer duty at Sabine Pass — the “retirement station,” some firefighters joke — because of the lighter number of 911 calls. But the calls they address, about six a week, can be serious enough.

Here’s how tough things can be in Sabine Pass: Fire Station 4 was wiped out first by Hurricane Rita in 2005, then a second time with Hurricane Ike in 2008. For some years, the firefighters were housed in a trailer.

Much of the time, Station 4 does “prep work” — just in case. They make plans for emergencies at places like Sabine Pass School, located around the corner and within eyesight. They would be the first to respond there in a major emergency.

For Christmas, Merkelz, a cook of good reputation, was preparing dinner: a roast. He said the sole store at Sabine Pass, Sabine Pass Sportsman, was closed Christmas Day “so we have to bring everything here.”

Merkelz said he found “some type of seasoning” and a bag of rice at the station.

“We’re going to make do this Christmas,” he said. “But we are going to eat.”

With no football on TV, they said they would make do with televised basketball or play board games.

And naps. Naps were mentioned.