By:JOSEPH KELLARD
The Hose Company firehouse on Evergreen Avenue in northwest Oceanside takes you back to an age when firefighters and their neighbors were closer - and often were the same people. Jim Garvey lived near the firehouse, which was built in 1921, and grew up intrigued by it, drawn to it. One day, during his teen years in the mid-1960s, he ventured inside to ask if he could volunteer.
"I saw the firehouse and knew I wanted to be in the company," Garvey told the Herald during a recent visit. "I was almost 18, and came in and asked the captain at the time if I could join, and he took me under his wing." Garvey, a retired Con Edison worker who was captain of the Hose Company in 1977-78, has volunteered ever since. "And my wife puts up with it," he joked.
Established in 1909, the privately owned company (also known as the Evergreen firehouse) has some 35 volunteers from various walks of life, from businessmen to employees of the Town of Hempstead, who range in age from 18 to 96. Tucked away in a residential neighborhood near the East Rockaway border, the firehouse isn't as visible as the companies of the Oceanside Fire Department, and thus it's less well known and has a smaller staff.
"We're probably the least known of all the firehouses," said Capt. John Madden. "People know about [Terrace Hose Co. No. 3 on Terrace Avenue] because it's near South Nassau Communities Hospital, but no one really knows about us."
However, the fact that the Hose Company is one of only two companies in the OFD that's equipped for and trained in water rescue, from open bays to flooded streets, is among its distinctions. While the Zodiac boat kept in a shed outside the firehouse hasn't been used for a rescue in several years (most recently to search for kids canoeing in East Rockaway and to try to save a beached dolphin), the department nevertheless trains weekly, just as it trains regularly in standard fire procedures its firefighters use during 400 or more calls a year.
"You just never know," Madden said about the water rescue procedures the company rarely executes.
While the Herald was visiting the company last Wednesday during its training night, a call came that lit up Madden's beeper, along with his eyes. Once he learned that the call had come from a neighbor with labored breathing, the captain relaxed a bit as his men jumped in a truck and took off within a minute of the call. Like its Zodiac boat, the company's engine truck is one of only two in the department. It's equipped with a command center, complete with a special board and radios that permit Madden and his crew to direct firefighters in other companies.
"Whether we're at home or out to dinner with our family, if we get a call, we have to go," Madden said about the all-volunteer force that makes up not just his company, but also the entire OFD.
When Madden is called to a fire, members of his family are sometimes right there next to him, battling the blaze. Madden, 25, decided to join his brother, ex-captain Pat Madden, and volunteer his time to the Hose Company in 1998. The company's family atmosphere further motivated him.
"I joined for the good times and camaraderie," Madden said, "but it turned out that I really liked helping people."
Seated on a leather couch in the company's den, which features a big-screen TV, a bar and a kitchen where the firefighters sometimes have dinner together, Madden discussed the other side of firefighting, the stark realities he and his comrades must sometimes face. He recalled the first time he chauffeured the engine truck to a call, an accident involving a drag racer who killed himself and another motorist on Lawson Boulevard in 2001. "When you see bodies in a car, it can be quite dramatic for the firefighters," Madden explained.
While this experience can't be taught to the Explorers, the firefighters at the Hose Company who train them expect it to rub off on them. The organization was established about six years ago, in conjunction with the local Boy Scouts, as a way to recruit more youngsters into the ranks of the OFD, whether they join Hose Co. No. 1 or another company. The aspiring firefighters train twice a month.
With many family members in the OFD, Ryan Costigan, 17, captain of the Explorers, entered the program when he turned 14. "It's helping me to prepare to join the department," said Costigan, whose father, Kevin, is an ex-chief. "There are a lot of great people down here. I made some of my best friends here, and you have a good time."
Unlike Costigan, Nicole Maurer, 19, had no relatives or friends who were firefighters, but like Madden, she wanted to join the Hose Company after she started to hang out there with a friend. "It's like your second family," said Maurer, one of the first two females in the company, standing before photos of the company's long line of captains and chiefs that line the den's walls.
A graduate of the Explorer Program, Maurer described the first fire she helped fight, an empty school bus on Brown Court last year, as a "huge adrenaline rush," as she hooked up the hose to a hydrant.
Maurer said that she learns more about her fellow firefighters while battling blazes alongside them. "Well, some of the older members see you and you're a girl," she explained, "but you show them you can do the job and you gain their respect."
"Now that we have women, we've added some class," Garvey joked.
Among the other old-school guys is John Traverso, chief of the department in 2003, who originally expressed some skepticism about hiring females to fight fires. "Nicole is real good," Traverso said in the company's garage, which housed two fire engines in decades past.
"At first, I wasn't a proponent of having women in the department, but she proved me wrong."
