Next Generation of Volunteer Firefighters Learn New Skills
More than 60 Putnam County junior firefighters and their counterparts from Westchester, Nassau and Albany Counties spent last weekend participating in the 11th annual Putnam County Explorer Training and Campout held at Veteran Memorial Park and the Putnam County Fire Training Center.
The explorer program is a co-ed division of the Boy Scouts of America made up of boys and girls ranging in ages from 14 to 18 years old.
Volunteer firefighters from the departments in Lake Carmel, Brewster, Mahopac, Kent and Carmel, served as instructors over the weekend, showing the junior firefighters how to conduct search and rescue, how to safely extricate someone trapped beneath a car, how to navigate a maze-like structure while blind-folded, and how to escape from a second story window within the blink of an eye, if ever needed.
In 2011, the Lake Carmel Explorer Post 2041 was named the National Volunteer Fire Council’s Junior Firefighter Program of the Year.
The only other Explorer program is in Brewster and so both Posts accept kids from surrounding towns to participate.
“When they turn 18, many of them join our firehouse or go back and join the fire department in the town they live in,” said Erin Scott who is the Post advisor and the coordinator of the annual event. Two former explorers, Rob Shannon and Ed Schaeffer, went on to become chief of the Lake Carmel Volunteer Fire Department.
Last Saturday, both men were back on site to help train the next generation of volunteer firefighters.
Among the Putnam County junior firefighters, dressed in heavy firefighting gear on a day that soared beyond 90 degrees, were Victoria Cecere, who is the captain of the Lake Carmel Explorer Post and will be starting her junior year at Brewster High School; Michael Priolo, who joined the Post three weeks previous and will be a junior this fall at Carmel High School and Gina Marie Lauria, also soon to start her junior year at Carmel High School.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
