Forty Years of Fire Fighting
by Frances Sandiford

Dennis McGuire at Ground Zero with Robert DeNiro
Photo courtesy of Dennis McGuire

     The wail of a fire siren, especially in the middle of the night, can make one's blood run cold. Repeated blasts mean that neighboring companies are being called in. It's a big one.
     For Brian and Dennis McGuire of Rhinebeck, a fire siren triggers a rush of adrenaline. The brothers have fought blazes, big and small, for forty plus years as members of the Rhinebeck and the Hillside Fire Departments. Until recently, fire alarms were phoned directly to the local companies. Now, they go to 911 where they are redirected. Brian and Dennis carry pagers so that they can be on call at any time.
"It could be a false alarm," Dennis explains, "Or it could be a fire out of control. What looks like something small might turn out to be horrific. Our job is to answer the calls. We never know what to expect until we reach the scene."
     Like all other firemen in the smaller towns of Dutchess Country, Brian and Dennis are volunteers. Both hold other jobs. Brian is a heavy equipment operator. Dennis, a retired New York State Trooper, has just been elected Rhinebeck's Town Supervisor. However, their fire fighting has a special magnetism for them. Both agree that it is scary, yet exhilarating.
     "Rescue comes first," says Dennis, who uses terms like "confined space rescue" and "rope rescue." "Then we try to save the building." If the situation looks hopeless, or the conflagration looks too dangerous for the firemen to go inside, they fight it from the outside as best they can. They must also look to protecting other buildings nearby by using a "water curtain," or a hosing down of the immediate area. Even with the smaller blazes, the firemen have to face searing flames, smothering smoke and tottering buildings. They endure heavy protective gear in the summers and frozen hoses in the winter. Despite the dangers, firemen work pretty much without fanfare. That is, they did until the events of September 11th in New York City. Suddenly, firemen like Brian and Dennis have become the new American heroes.
     In 1963, Dennis and Brian thought that they had fought the biggest blaze they would ever see. The Scheffler Lumber Company, located on Fisk Street in Red Hook, was caught up in a fire of unknown origins. Fueled by piles of lumber and coal, it burned out of control. Today, only long time local residents remember that the building ever existed.
For Dennis the scale of disaster changed forever on the morning of September 11th. Dennis was in his car, preparing to go on vacation. He happened to turn on his radio, and, like many others throughout the nation, he heard the news of the destruction at the World Trade Towers. His pager calling him to a local alert did not go off; a much bigger pager in his mind did. His vacation was forgotten. He set out on his way to a fire that would make the Scheffler Lumber Company blaze seem like the mere striking of a match.
     On three separate days, Dennis volunteered his services at Ground Zero. Public transportation would take him only as far as Fulton Street. He had to walk the rest of the way.
     "None of my training had prepared me for what I saw," Dennis says. Television cameras were a half mile from the scene. "The piles of debris, the burnt out buildings, everything looked much worse close up." Dressed in his fireman's gear, Dennis checked in at the checkpoint with the National Guard and began working. It was no longer a question of fighting a fire. That part was already over with, at the cost of 300 firemen's lives. It was time for the grim aftermath.
Knee deep in soot and ashes, Dennis lined up with thirty other volunteers for a bucket brigade. The man on the end of the line would fill a bucket with ashes and pass it down. The last person to handle it would then rake through the contents, looking for body parts, or anything else that would identify a victim. As in a scene from a horror movie, fingers or small bits of flesh would emerge from the residue. It was as if Dennis were having a nightmare, except that the heat from the ashes and the choking dust in the air made it all too real. The tallest buildings in the world were in ruin, and their remains were scattered everywhere.
     Dennis is not unused to being thanked for the fire fighting he does. The expressions of appreciation that he received at Ground Zero, however, were overwhelming. "People were lined up for a good half mile, waving, clapping, hugging the firemen as they passed. Everyone was saying 'Thank you' at once." Dennis shook hands with Governor Pataki, nodded to President Bush, and was photographed with actor Robert DeNiro, who owns a restaurant in the area. In the days immediately after September 11th Dennis and his companions were the celebrities of the moment, as were firemen everywhere.
     Today, Dennis is back in Rhinebeck. His memories of the World Trade Center is a collection of snap shots taken on the spot. A particularly memorable one is of the burnt out South Tower, which looks for all the world like the exposed rib cage of a human being.
Dennis is soon to start his first term as Supervisor of the Town. Since it is getting dark, he turns on a lamp in his house. "See," he says in a typically self-deprecating manner, "That's why I'm the Supervisor. I know when to turn on the light."
     What may be ahead of him may pale by comparison with the events just past and all the human sagas connected with it. He points to a small red lollipop on a shelf. "As I was leaving from Fulton Street, I felt a gentle tug on my pants. I looked down to see a little girl holding that lollipop up to me. I guess I'll always keep it."