Located immediately east of New York City, Long Island (pronounced “Lawng Eyeland”) is the easternmost land mass in New York State. While known as Long Island, it is technically a peninsula (a running joke, particularly among out of state college students) as it is surrounded by water on three sides. Often when I tell people that I am from Long Island, their usual response (particularly among firefighters) is “hey do you happen to know Joe So & So, oh geez, what’s the name of that dept. he was with?” to which my response is “No, Long Island is not really an island - there’s over 2 million people who live there”. Most people envision Long Island as this tiny little community where everyone knows everyone - kinda like Gilligan’s Island only with paved roads!! There are still small communities on the East End as well as on Fire Island (a real island separated from the mainland) where people do know everyone but that is not typical.
With regard to the fire service on Long Island, all Fire, Rescue & EMS is provided by volunteer departments with a proud history dating as far back as the 1800’s (the oldest fire department in New York State, Sag Harbor FD at 200+ years old is located in Suffolk County). Long Island’s volunteers are known as active, well funded & highly trained employing aggressive tactics in firefighting, technical rescue & EMS. Many career members of the FDNY & NYPD are among Long Island’s volunteers with their hometown departments, often serving as command officers bringing an even higher level of experience & training to their respective departments.
The demographics of the Long Island fire service vary greatly with regard to each department’s manpower levels, apparatus fleet and number of responses. Departments range from those handling 200 alarms a year operating from one station with a few apparatus protecting a rural community on the East End to those with multiple stations, large apparatus fleets & 100+ active members answering over 3,000 alarms annually.
Target hazards fit every conceivable category ranging from typical two story frame homes to large estates, commercial properties, industrial manufacturing facilities, miles of beachfront (water/ice rescue is a large part of LI’s technical rescue responses), large areas of preserved open space (creating the potential for wildfires), several regional airports, a military air base, national research laboratory and numerous nationally registered historical landmarks throughout Long Island’s communities.
