Nassau Junior Firefighters embark on Germany training trip

Nassau County junior firefighters, including three from the Hewlett Fire Department, recently took off on an international trip that was nearly six years in the making.

Haylee Fischer, Hayley Goldstein and Audrey Sasso, members of the Hewlett Junior Fire Department, flew to Lower Saxony, Germany, with Hewlett Juniors adviser Erik Fischer — Haylee’s father — on what they described as the “trip of a lifetime.” Junior firefighters, ages 12 to 17, meet three times a month for firefighting training.

Jerry Presta, chairman of the Nassau County Junior Firefighters Association, organized the excursion for 30 juniors from Nassau County across the Atlantic to take part in a week of training and a cultural immersion in German firefighting, funded by the German government, which oversees all of the country’s fire departments.

The planning began in 2018, when firefighters from Lower Saxony contacted the Fire Association of the State of New York about connecting the teens who take part in German juniors programs with those in the United States. A year later, 13 kids from Germany came to New York for Camp Fahrenheit, a weeklong program for county juniors with all-day drills at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy in Old Bethpage.

In 2020 and 2022, Nassau juniors planned to travel to Germany to train, but because of the pandemic and, later, the war in Ukraine, the trip was delayed until this year.

“We said last year, ‘I don’t care if we have to walk there, we’re coming,’” Presta said.

Forty Nassau juniors applied to be a part of the 2024 excursion, and 30 were accepted.

On Aug. 16, the group boarded a flight at Kennedy Airport, and as soon as they landed in Lower Saxony, the young firefighters and 10 chaperones went directly to the training facility, dropping their bags in the school where they slept on cots for the week — provided by the German government.

From 9 a.m. until mid-afternoon each day, the Nassau juniors and 20 of their German peers ran through the country’s junior firefighting, first aid and safety training.

The Hewlett contingent, which took part in mixed groups with the Germans, said that they heard new terminology, learned how to use German equipment and were exposed to unique approaches to fighting fires.

“As long as there’s nobody in the building, they won’t put their people at risk to go inside, so they’ll do an exterior attack, and they’ll put water through the windows,” Erik, who joined the juniors in the training, said.

Sasso’s favorite part of the trip was a maze in which where she and others had to climb through small spaces with their bulky gear.

“I went with a group of kids I didn’t really know too well,” Sasso said. “So it was a big thing. I really had to trust them here, and I’m somebody who’s claustrophobic, so mazes aren’t my favorite thing, but I’m in Germany. When am I ever going to do a maze in Germany again?”

The language barrier was an occasional obstacle, but the Hewlett trio said they used Google Translate to help them communicate.

“We had to try to communicate during lessons where we didn’t have our phone, so we ended up just kind of pointing at things, making hand signs,” Goldstein said.

When they weren’t training, the visitors tried traditional German food, went kayaking and did some sightseeing. One day was even dedicated to visiting the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

“It really showed how hearing about it and seeing it are two totally different things,” Sasso said.

One of the best parts of the trip was the lasting friendships they formed, the Hewlett juniors said. “It was really hard leaving,” Haylee Fischer said. “A lot of us cried, because in firefighting there’s a different type of bond. It’s a very tight-knit family. It’s because we have to trust each other.”

Presta said that plans are already in place to continue the cross-Atlantic collaboration between departments.

For more information on the Nassau County Junior Firefighters Association, visit NCJFA.org.