By Doug Miller
Then she married him. One night her family was coming over for dinner when Kemins's beeper went off. An abandoned supermarket had been set on fire, allegedly by two teenagers. Kemins was gone all night, returning exhausted, wet and cold. And he was hardly alone. Dozens of volunteers from Long Beach responded to the blaze. All missed dinner that night.
"Now [Gayle] says that it's nice we get at least one sit-down dinner per year," Kemins said.
For people like Kemins and more than 170 volunteer members of the Long Beach Fire Department like him, missing a dinner, a party or a family outing is a weekly occurrence. Volunteers like this should be recognized every year, but for their perpetual service, their missed meals and the overall credit they bring to the city, the volunteers of the Long Beach Fire Department are the Herald's 2005 People of the Year.
The Long Beach F.D. is unique on Long Island. It's by far the busiest, and on a per-call basis it's the cheapest. It lacks the recruitment and retention problems that seem to have been the year's hot topic, and offers its volunteers few perks other than training, adventure and the occasional cool scar or sweatshirt.
The fiscal outlays of Long Island fire departments have been the subject of some gossip this year, so the Long Beach department would like to share the following:
In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2004, the most recent year available, the department raised about $161,000 from public contributions, according to tax returns provided to the Herald.
The city pays for the fire equipment -- trucks, fuel, helmets and the like -- and a grateful public covers the rest: the Christmas party, office supplies, those sweatshirts and company outings. There is also the annual installation dinner, which costs about $41,500, of which the taxpayers kick in about $12,000. At the banquet, the department entertains roughly 300 volunteers, friends and VIPs, which puts the price tag at about 75 percent of what a wedding of similar size on Long Island would cost. And the dinner also serves as a fund-raiser in its own right.
Of the publicly raised money, and $2.4 million budgeted by the city for fire protection (which also includes the salaries and benefits of the professionals), exactly zero was spent on the type of activities lately described as being common practice in firehouses elsewhere on the Island, several fire officials said.
Alcohol is banned from city buildings, they said, and the chiefs' compensation stipends are usually spent plugging holes elsewhere in the budget. Three years ago, for instance, volunteers spent their own money and their own weekends, and used their own tools to build a deck on the back of the West End firehouse, which happens to have a priceless view of Reynolds Channel, in order to make the old building more inviting to volunteers with children. Assistant Chief Marco Passaro donated his stipend to the effort.
The number of volunteer firefighters in the U.S. has dropped from roughly 900,000 to 800,000 in 20 years, due almost entirely to the changing economics of American households, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council. It's a trend that seems to have missed Long Beach.
Kemins, who has volunteered for 26 years and who was succeeded as chief last year by Ralph Tuccillo, estimates that the department turns over perhaps 10 to 15 members per year through attrition. "The guys we lose are living here when they're younger, but then they get married and they move someplace where it's cheaper," Kemins said. "We don't get a lot of commuters or white-collar workers. It's working people who will join the volunteer fire department. We are not in dire need of volunteers, but they are always welcome, and there are times of the day when we never have enough."
Finding grateful donors is seldom a problem either. Kemins would not name names, but said that a gentleman in Atlantic Beach, whose house was saved by the department, sends in a check for $5,000 every year. Other people across the department's coverage area, from Blackheath to Silver Point, seem to come through each year with similar generosity.
And the odds of someone volunteering, going through the training, earning certification and then not jumping out of bed for a call are minimal, since none of the volunteers interviewed by the Herald in the past 18 months has displayed anything but an infectious enthusiasm toward the work.
And the blue-collar stereotype goes only so far. Take Capt. Michael A. Fina, 30. If his name sounds familiar, either you know your fine housewares or watch a lot of game shows. Fina is one of the next generation who will be taking over the Michael C. Fina Company, named for his grandfather and known for the place-settings and China patterns often featured on "The Price is Right."
Fina was born in Forest Hills, Queens, across from a firehouse, but his family moved to Long Beach when he was 6. He became an Eagle Scout at 15, and through scouting was introduced to the fire volunteers. He joined at 18, became an EMT almost immediately and was an advanced medical technician by age 20. He graduated from Hofstra in four years, he boasts, "without missing a fire."
Running a fire brigade is good training for running a company, Fina said, and vice versa. "When you work with people who are doing it for the right reasons, it's an amazing thing," he said.
It also makes Fina something of an exceptional worker. His family's company has branched into corporate gifts -- plaques and the like given to employees for significant achievements -- and he travels extensively to meet with customers. But when he's home, he's a fireman.
So there was the time he showed up for a meeting with a customer in Atlanta sporting a fresh shiner. "I'm 25 at the time," Fina recalled, "so everyone assumed it was a bar fight. People are constantly surprised that I do this."
The danger of a working fire is far greater than can be measured in black eyes, Fina acknowledged. There was the time in 1997 when a volunteer from out of town who was standing near him fell through a roof at a Connecticut Avenue fire. It was a close call, and it provided a lesson. "We protect life and property, in that order," he said. "Starting with our own. Having said that, we sometimes perform some, um, daring acts."
It's a lot of work, Fina acknowledged, but he had little difficulty finding the inspiration for it. "I'm not really a people person, but what motivates me is the people," he said. "There is a camaraderie to working with and being around such dedicated people."
While Fina is a relatively new arrival to town, the department has a good representation from old Long Beach families as well. Lt. Eileen DiBari is a young West Ender and a third-generation firefighter, after her father, Richard, and grandfather, Daniel Larson (an ex-chief), who, between them, put in 75 years with the department. "I grew up listening to scanners," Eileen said.
If volunteers quietly rue the time away from their families, the DiBari clan seemed to have the solution. When the pager went off, the whole family went: Dad with the fire truck and Mom with the kids in the car to watch.
"My mom grew up with it, too," DiBari said. "But she isn't the type to fight fires. Just to drive everyone there."
As much as her family played a role in her calling, DiBari also credited the Long Beach schools. A member of the Long Beach High School class of 2001, she was part of the first crop of students to take the newly available EMT courses at the high school, and it forged her love for the job.
Of course, it's one thing to see your bigger-than-life father single-handedly stamp out a raging fire; it's quite another to discover for the first time just how real the job is. "The first dead body I saw was a middle-aged man who just died in his chair," DiBari recalled. "It was different. Weird. He wasn't dead for too long, so it wasn't too bad. Well, not for me, anyway ..."
