‘Man’s Best Friends’ Repaid in Kind by the ‘Best On The Beach’

By Gordon Bennett

Late Tuesday night, October 14, at 11:38 p.m., FDNY Dispatch received a 911 call for smoke in the general area of Beach 44th St. and Rockaway Beach Blvd. Prior to arrival, the members of E-265 and L-121 detected the odor of heavy smoke, and soon observed obvious smoke shrouding the streetlamps. Two tell-tale signs of a growing fire close at hand.

Though a fire clearly raged somewhere in the area, immense fences obscured any line of sight to most properties. Pushing nearly his entire body up and out of the moving fire engine’s window, FF Godfrey McLean, of E-265, gained a vantage impossible from the street and even the engine’s elevated crew cab. Immediately he sent out the alarm: “There’s fire pushing out the back of the house on the corner!”

Deftly positioning the engine on the first fire hydrant, with the greatest of haste, engine company chauffer FF Louis Saint-Surin, furiously endeavored to establish a positive water source. And upon reaching the front of the fire building, Battalion Chief Robert McKeefrey, of the 47 Battalion, quickly radioed to all members his own alarm: “All members use caution, this yard is full of some mean looking dogs.”

E-265 and L-121 worked in conjunction. The engine smoothly stretching weighty lengths of hose, and the ladder ensuring the best and quickest access to the seat of the fire, and any imperiled civilians. With the sort of teamwork and proficiency, fundamental to the legacy and traditions of the FDNY, the members of L-121, chauffeured by FF Kali White, and led by Lt. Brian Werner, adroitly located and ripped clean off the hinges, a nearly undetectable side gate, directly abreast of the blaze.

FDNY members now had immediate access for search and size-up, and more importantly, an unfettered position for E-265 to begin setting up for hose-line operations. The members now realized that while the exterior of the house was largely ablaze, the seat of the fire lay in a 10’ by 20’ plywood and wire-mesh dog kennel attached directly to the rear of the home.

With operations running smoothly, Chief McKeefrey’s “mean dogs” posing no threat, and water set to soon begin flowing freely, FF Kieran Mills of L-121 observed what other members missed in the heavy fire and thick smoke.  He loudly exclaimed: “There’s a bunch of dogs still in there!” E-265 officer, Lieutenant Christopher Bambury, recounted: “Three dogs were crouched all together, just pushing up hard against the wire-mesh, just about in the fire. No barking or yelping like you’d expect or even hope for. Couldn’t figure out if they were just too scared or had about given up.”

Despite the seemingly haphazard construction of the kennel, the Byzantine stretches of heavy wire held fast as members literally worked in open flame and blinding smoke to create an escape from what had begun to seem an unsurvivable position for the now nearly stilled dogs.

Backed up by FF Eladio Garcia, E-265 nozzleman, Danny Young, could now be heard “bleeding the line,” as air violently exited the nozzle by the force of water successively filling each length of hose. Young instinctively assumed an aggressive position from which to open the nozzle and extinguish the spreading blaze intent on destroying the entire home. If still trapped when the nozzle was fully opened, the dogs stood no chance.

Moments before firefighters Young and Garcia were ready to open the nozzle, the concerted and undaunted efforts of New York’s Bravest succeeded in creating an exit. Two dogs made fast their escape. But one white-and-gold spotted hooch, scared and confused by the maddening spectacle, ran back into the kennel’s flames.  At the sight of this, Broad Channel’s own FF Kieran Mills, dropped to his knees, crawled into and under the licking flames and made for a “grab.”  The hysterical hooch proved uncompliant. Time was up.

Abandoning his initial efforts, and eschewing all of his “sensitivity training,” Mills fiercely snatched the poor pup and pointed the puzzled pooch in the proper direction. Members promptly cleared out, and E-265’s “nozzle team” of Young and Garcia, blasted the blazing wreck of a structure into oblivion, stopping the spreading fire dead in its tracks.

Make no mistake, the “Best On The Beach” were fully backed up by the reliable members of the “Big House”; the best single engine in Queens, the “Holland House”; and the determined brothers and sisters of “The Beach House.”  No individual, and no single company of the FDNY, ever works truly alone. Teamwork and professionalism carried the day and shall forever continue to do so in the neighborhoods of NYC.