By Linda Delmonico-Prussen
Now add heavy smoke. Smoke so thick it can quickly choke a person to death. Then there's the searing heat.
The source of the smoke and heat is a blaze on a floor somewhere high above you -- a blaze so intense that you can hear it breathe. Your mission is to find the fire -- fast. There are people up there, and they're trapped. You have to save them. But first you must get past the dark, the smoke and the heat.
So you put on your protective fire pants and coat, air tank, breathing mask and helmet -- which together weigh over 150 pounds -- grab a heavy hose line to extinguish the fire when you get to it, and plunge into the burning building.
In the end, you'll have to race up six flights to get to the blaze and the victims.
The first words you hear before you attack the fire are deceptively hospitable, though. "Good evening, Merrick," Chief Henry Moll, a firefighting instructor, says. "Welcome to the evolution."
"Evolution" is firefighting jargon for challenge, or mission. The place is the Nassau County Fire Service Academy in Bethpage, where 52 instructors train 71 volunteer fire departments from across the county. According to chief instructor John Murray, that amounts to about 20,000 students per year.
The Herald recently spent an evening at the academy with the Merrick Fire Department to see what it takes to become a firefighter in Nassau County. The above scenario describes just one of the many mock exercises that trainees must complete to become volunteer firefighters.
The academy, which opened in 1963, started with two heavy-duty cement buildings, one that resembles two attached stores and the other, a home. In the firefighting industry, they're referred to as a "taxpayer."
The academy now has five buildings. Some of the structures have sprinkler systems that go off while trainees practice, to simulate how a sprinkler can interfere with a rescue effort. The six-story building that the Merrick department trained in last Thursday night was designed to simulate offices and apartments. To create the massive fires that light up the structures, pans the size of wading pools are filled with water, followed by two inches of fuel oil. Wood is then laid on top and ignited.
New and veteran firefighters hone their skills at the academy. "Baffles," or movable walls, allow instructors to rearrange buildings so that even experienced firefighters who have completed the training several times won't know what to expect during an exercise.
Metal shields, which simulate furniture and other obstacles, are placed throughout the structures as "challenges" for trainees to maneuver around. "Victims" made of cut-up fire hoses are hidden throughout the buildings.
At the academy, there's also a boat to train Coast Guard captains and pilots in case there's a fire on board one of their vessels, and there are two Long Island Rail Road train cars.
One of the academy's most impressive buildings is the fire lab. There, 10 trainees at a time experience "flashovers" firsthand. A fire is lit atop a four-foot-high platform at the front of the room. There's a shield at the front of the platform, and behind the shield, lining the sidewalls, are two low-lying benches where the firefighters sit. The fire "flashes over" trainees' heads, escaping through one of two vents cut out of the ceiling. The temperature where the firefighters sit reaches 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Above their heads, the heat soars to 1700 degrees as the fire rushes by. The flashover lasts 13 to 18 minutes.
The reasons firefighters volunteer to serve their communities -- and endure such trying training exercises -- are numerous. Monte Sherman, 48, a retired New York City police officer, is an 18-month member of Merrick's Empire Hose Company. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he said, "I had to do it [join the Merrick department]. This country's been too damn good to me. I've just been so lucky in life."
Sherman, who has lived in Merrick for four years, said he doesn't mind taking orders from department members who might be significantly younger than he is. "You have to go in with the right attitude," he said. He described his younger superior officers as "very sharp."
Chris Cocuzza, 28, a rookie with Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, said his father inspired him to join the department. "My father was a volunteer fireman. I want to do what my father did," he said.
Of the training exercise inside the tower, Cocuzza said, "I'm not afraid of burning. I'm more afraid of getting lost and suffocating."
Michael Ryan, 22, a six-year member of Merrick's Friendship Engine Company who is on the waiting list to become a New York City firefighter, said of the tower exercise, "You can't see anything." But the lack of visibility wasn't what was hardest for him. The most difficult part, said Ryan, was "definitely humping the hose."
Bill Mingione, 28, is a three-year Merrick resident and eight-month Empire member. Formerly a captain with the Island Park F.D., Mingione, who has been a firefighter for 11 years, said, "The biggest challenge is communication." Firefighters must remain in constant contact by radio, both inside and outside a burning building. Success in firefighting depends on teamwork.
Karen Ann Wortmann, 16, a junior firefighter, said she was eager to join the Merrick department because of family ties. "My whole family has been in the department. My sister's been in it, my father, my uncle and my cousin," she said.
The Merrick department's training at the six-story tower went well last Thursday. Rich Roeill, 41, a "chauffeur," or driver, for Empire Hose Company's truck 642, said he's been in the tower about a dozen times. Roeill, a three-year department member and a former ironworker, said of the exercise, "It was an experience. You can't see your hand in front of your face, but you can feel your way through."
