Future firefighters get a truck to call their own

The sign dedicating the fire truck to the Valley Stream juniors.

Andrew Hackmack/Herald

The fire truck, old Engine 342, was customized by the village’s Sign Shop for the juniors.

Andrew Hackmack/Herald

Mayor Ed Fare, second from right, talks about the new fire truck with Department Chief Joseph Fernandez, left, and junior officers Brendan Labeck, Peter Laserinko and Richie Field.

Andrew Hackmack/Herald

Members of the Valley Stream Junior Fire Department accepted their new fire truck on March 17 outside the Fire Department’s headquarters on Rockaway Parkway.

Andrew Hackmack/Herald

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The Valley Stream Junior Fire Department now has its own fire truck. Although the members of the group won’t be able to drive it, they will use it for training, parades and a source of pride.

“It’s great,” said Brendan Labeck, 14, the organization’s treasurer. “Now we feel we have something to take care of. It’s our responsibility.”

Old Engine 342, a 1981 Mack, is the new truck for the juniors. The truck had been sitting unused at the village’s public works facility on Arlington Avenue.

It was taken out of service in 2004 when Engine Company No. 2, based at the Brooklyn Avenue Firehouse, got its new truck. For a few years, it was used as a spare rig until Engine Company No. 3 got its new truck and old Engine 343 became the Fire Department’s extra unit.

“It’s been sitting there,” Fire Chief Joseph Fernandez said of the truck. “It mostly served its purpose.”

The village owns all of the fire trucks and the Board of Trustees had to approve the use of the truck for the Junior Fire Department. Mayor Ed Fare said that selling it wasn’t a viable option. “It’s very difficult to market and sell old fire trucks,” he said. “Most departments want new rigs. The only value you get out of these is scrap metal.”

In fact, Fare said, the last two fire trucks the village was able to sell were to departments in other countries. That’s why he said giving it to the juniors made sense.

“It’s a rallying point, a sense of pride for the juniors,” he said. “The juniors didn’t have anything to call their own.”

Paul Coppola, who advises the Junior Fire Department along with Mike Field and Frank Irizarry, said the junior members can use the truck for training purposes, such as hooking up and stretching hoses. He said this will give them a head start for when they want to join the Fire Department when they turn 18. “The whole program is based on the future firefighters,” he said of the juniors program. “They learn everything the big guys learn.”

Until the juniors got their own truck, members would train with one of the Fire Department’s seven companies.

The group’s advisors will be responsible for driving the truck, whether it is to a training site or in a parade. It will continue to be kept at the public works yard.

Workers at the village’s Sign Shop, also located at the Arlington Avenue facility, customized the truck for the juniors, including a dedication to Richie Fernandez, the fire chief’s late son who was a member of the juniors and died at 12 years old.

The Junior Fire Department has 34 members, and the amount of participants has tripled in the past five years. In addition to Labeck, the officers are Capt. Peter Laserinko, 18, Lt. Richie Field, 14, and Secretary Jessica Fare, 16. The organization is open to boys and girls ages 12-18.

Fernandez said that the truck could serve as motivation for even more teenagers to join the Junior Fire Department. “Not many departments would be this generous to the juniors,” he said.

Now that the juniors have the truck, they want to fill it with tools to help them train. Lt. Field said the juniors are asking the Fire Department’s companies for donations of old equipment.