By Ex-Captain Steve Grogan

 The Lynbrook Fire Department (LFD) has a Junior Fire Department program that was formed in 1979.  For years leading up to the formation of the program the LFD had been experiencing a slowdown in volunteer recruitment and the idea of a junior program for youngsters was started to help fill the ranks in the department.  The program is opened to Lynbrook boys and girls between the ages of 12 through 17.  There are presently 45 youngsters in today’s program.  At age 18 the junior can apply and join one of the fire companies in the department and become a volunteer firefighter in the Village of Lynbrook.

The juniors don’t fight fires.  They learn about firefighting and help out at fire scenes and other department functions.  The juniors train and learn about each of the five fire companies and the Medical Company so that each junior, a potential future firefighter, gains a complete picture of how the LFD operates.

The juniors have uniforms and march with the department in all their parades and compete for trophies against other junior departments.  Over the years they have taken home many winning trophies.  In 2003 the Lynbrook Juniors were recognized as the first and best junior department in Nassau County.  This is the second time that they have received this distinction.  They had received it in 2001.  The junior members also participate in the hose event competition each year during the department’s annual home tournament in Greis Park.

Since 1979 over 65 juniors have gone on to become Lynbrook firefighters.  The juniors have adopted the slogan, “Tomorrow’s Firefighters Today.”  One of these former juniors that joined in that first group of youngsters in 1979 was Robert Cribbin who at age 18 joined the department.  Cribbin climbed through the ranks of Tally-Ho Company and later became Chief of the Lynbrook Fire Department.  Other junior members in 1979 were Carl Lengel, now an Ex-Captain of Vulcan Company; Gene Cribbin, also an Ex-Captain of Vulcan Company; and Kevin Bien, an Ex-Captain of Truck Company.  In addition two other original members, Pat Hahl and Joe Cipolla, besides also joining the department went on to become Lynbrook police officers, as did Ex-Captain Lengel.

The juniors meet the first Sunday of each month at 10 AM at Fire Headquarters on Wright Avenue.  Firefighters from each of the six companies in the department are advisors to the juniors. 

In 1979, myself and Don Waring, both of Tally-Ho Company and Len Llewellyn, then a member of Vulcan Company and now a member of Truck Company, were the first advisors.  If it were not for the donations of equipment in those early years of the juniors, along with the full support of the department as well as from all of Lynbrook’s fire companies, the program would not have been successful. 

During their training of the juniors the advisors from the six companies continue to stress that school, church and family come first.  The service these juniors perform help them satisfy their community service requirements for Confirmation and school graduation.

The 1979 junior program was not however the first time that the LFD had a junior program.  The first juniors were formed by Rescue, Hook, Ladder and Bucket Company, No. 1 (Truck Company), which was Lynbrook’s first fire company.

According to the stories I have read, Truck Company, which was formed in 1879, received their first motorized ladder truck in 1917.  The company decided for this new truck that “a mascot would be appropriate, so a proud mother, a wife of one of the members made an attractive suit for her five year old son, who was officially acclaimed Mascot……..Several years later as this boy outgrew this uniform it was passed on to another boy in town.  Other mothers were given no rest until they got permission to make duplicates of this mascot uniform and allow their boys to parade with the firemen.”

This was the forming in 1920 of the first junior program in Lynbrook.  They were called the “Rescue Juniors.”  The junior membership, which at that time was open only to boys seven to thirteen years of age, quickly grew to over sixty members in the mid 1920’s.  The juniors were “all uniformed with maltese badges, flags, banners, fife and drum, bugler, and trumpets.”  They even had their own piece of apparatus, Truck Company’s old hand drawn “Jumper” fire wagon. 

In those days the juniors were referred to as, “Fire Eaters of Tomorrow.”

            In an undated report, but believed to be in the late 1920’s, to the Lynbrook Fire Department, prepared by junior organizer Fred Riefler of Truck Company, Reifler wrote, “These boys travel at the expense of the Lynbrook Department to every parade, tournament, or any public appearance, competing against other junior organizations, winning many beautiful silver loving cups."

            Reifler further wrote, “It is the duty of these boys….to report any fire hazard they may see during the day.  On various occasions they burned off brushwood and weeds from vacant lots, where a brush fire might endanger other nearby property as well as saving the firemen from being called unexpectedly from their work or at night while asleep to answer the call of fire caused by the carelessness of some passerby.”

            I have also been able to verify that besides the Rescue Juniors, both Hose Company and later Tally-Ho Company also formed their own juniors program.  Although the record is not clear the junior programs were active in the Lynbrook Fire Department until the late 1930’s.  It appears they were all disbanded before the start of World War II.

            Over 40 years after the first junior programs ended, the Lynbrook Junior Fire Department was formed in 1979 on a department wide basis under the leadership of then Chief Robert Forte, a member of Truck Company, the company that formed the first junior program in 1920.  In 2004, the Lynbrook Junior Fire Department will celebrate its 25^th Anniversary.   The juniors are planning a celebration of this milestone and all of those firefighters who went through the program will be invited to the celebration.

            From “Fire Eaters of Tomorrow” to “Tomorrow’s Firefighters Today,” Congratulations.