Nanuet Fire Dept Open House: Fire Drills & A Car In Flames

Kids in little red firefighter hats scampered about the open house hosted by the Nanuet Fire Department this past Sunday.

The Rockland Paramedics and the Nanuet Ambulance Corps. Both the Nanuet Ambulance Corps and the Nanuet FD are made up of volunteers from the community. Not only was the open house a fun learning day for families and kids on fire safety, but also a chance for these two volunteer organizations to show the public what they're all about in hopes of attracting more volunteers.

Right now there are 60-65 active volunteers for the Nanuet FD and a total of 80 members.

"We should have 90," said Frank Hutton, president of the Committee to Promote Volunteerism in Rockland County Emergency Services, Inc. "We're trying to double our input (of members)." He said their goal is 400 new members joining per year to all the fire departments in the county.

"For the parents that are older, we try to get them to volunteer," said Lieutenant Jonathan Delgado of the Ambulance Corps.

Firefighter Julio Atiles taught children fire tips in the kitchen, what a fire detector sounds and looks like when it's on and fire drills in the fire safety model home.

"Today has been a very good turn out. I'm a fairly recent addition to the fire department, only three years. It's very rewarding," he said. "It's nice to see the whole community come together and it's great teaching kids how to be safe with fire. A lot of kids like o be with mom when she's cooking so I teach them how to be safe with the stove."

Erich Rechenberger Jr. is part of the Ambulance Corps and was did the ambulance tours at the open house.

"I just show the kids around the ambulance and the equipment we have," he said.

"We had a very good crowd," said Priscilla Roth from the Nanuet Fire Engine Company Ladies Auxiliary. The Ladies Auxiliary help Nanuet FD with rehab and refreshments at long emergency incidents as well as run fundraisers for the fire department. At the open house, they provided the refreshments, popcorn and hotdogs for those that came. Roth said that they're always looking for women in the community to join the auxiliary and they're excited about the Penny Sale Fundraiser coming up this Saturday.

Other than food, the other fun features of the open house included showcasing all the fire engines, old and current, and offering fire safety material from pamphlets to smoke detector batteries and a raffle to give away fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.

For the kids, they could try their hand at the fire hose spraying at window flaps on a fake house front, explore the inside of an ambulance and learn hands-on fire safety in a model house.

Inside the house, they saw and heard what a smoke detector does when turned on, fire safety in the kitchen and a fire drill run in which they learned how to escape out a window ladder.

A main demonstration was done on an old car. The firefighters showed how they would save someone from the car if he or she was trapped. They started by safely breaking and removing the windows followed by cutting the hood off turning the car into a convertible. Lastly, they explained to the audience the different fire and smoke colors by putting the car on fire and then extinguishing it.

One of the kids, JP Feltham, liked the car demonstration the most.

"I liked when they broke open the car. It was cool," he said. Another little girl, Kristea Sulla, also put the car fire as her top pick of things she liked that day.

"I liked it because of the big explosion when it got set on fire," she said.

2-year-old Travis Robert came dressed up completely as a firefighter. His mother laughed and said her son actually believes he's part of the fire department and takes it very seriously.