Murrieta firefighters helped a mother in labor deliver a baby boy at a gas station early Friday.

At 11:52 p.m. Thursday, the Murrieta Fire Department was called to the Mobil gas station on Los Alamos Road.

The mother was in labor and traveling alone from the Hemet-San Jacinto area to Rancho Springs Medical Center in Murrieta when she pulled off on the wrong exit from Interstate 215, Murrieta Fire Chief Matt Shobert told Patch in a phone interview Friday.

"As it became clear that birth was imminent, firefighters considered [prior to the ambulance arriving] using a police car on scene to rapidly transport the mother to Rancho Springs Hospital less than two miles away," said Matt Corelli, spokesperson for the Murrieta Fire Department, in a news release.

"They arrived on scene within five minutes and talked with the expectant mother and decided to start the delivery," Shobert said.

Firefighter/paramedics debated but ultimately decided the birth was imminent.

The newborn was delivered at 12:08 a.m. on the gurney in the parking lot of the gas station once the ambulance arrived.

Both were transported to Rancho Springs Medical Center where care was transferred to labor and delivery staff, Corelli said.

"It wasn't a full-term baby," Shobert said. "There were some minor complications with the delivery at the scene and mother and the crews overcame them and the mother and the little baby boy are doing fine."

In his 27-year career as a firefighter, Shobert said this does not happen too often. He has been exposed to three deliveries in his career.

"Quite often we are dealing with certain levels of carnage and fires and this is just the opposite of that. So it was nice," Shobert said.

"Optimally we would like to have this baby delivered in a sterile environment but that wasn't the case here," he said.

"Last we checked mother and baby were doing fine."

The hospital could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Corelli said that as part of their emergency medical technician paramedic training, they do rotations at hospital labor and delivery wards to train for childbirth in the event they are required to help.