NORTH BRUNSWICK — Being a volunteer firefighter is taxing enough, but being a volunteer firefighter after working a full day during one of the most massive fires in the state is even more stressful.
Ten employees of the North Brunswick Department of Public Works (DPW) are also volunteers with the three fire companies in town.
Chris Gianotto, Eric Chaszar, Steve Amato, Dan Jolly, his son Ryan Jolly, Brent Lane, Tom Lettieri, Robert Mattei, Mike Vitanza and Joe Whalen complete their fulltime shifts from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. every day, then often go to their local firehouse to volunteer for overnight shifts.
Dan Jolly said former Mayor Paul Matacera initially hired firefighters as township employees because “he knew he had someone to answer the fire calls.”
“It’s a good thing for everyone involved,” he said.
“We’re here during the day to get the apparatus out,” Vitanza added. “We’ve got the manpower.”
If a fire call comes in during the day, the men are alerted by dispatch through a smartphone app.
“If you’re available to go, you go,” said Chaszar, who became the director of DPW earlier this year. “The town does not [legally] prevent any fireman from going, whether they are a fireman in this town or another town.”
“We drop what we’re doing if there is a structure fire [or motor vehicle entrapment.] We all stop and respond,” said Vitanza, a laborer with DPW who has been volunteering at Fire Co. 3 since 2000.
For “smells and bells,” such as a carbon dioxide monitor or activated alarms, a select group of firefighters respond instead of the entire crew.
Afterward, the men generally stay at their respective firehouse from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Thursday, or perhaps respond to an overnight call from their home, depending on the fire company.
The group agreed that the quantity of fire calls ranges from a dozen in one day, to multiple overnight, to calm for a few weeks before getting slammed, especially during a storm.
“Your shift is basically 24 hours a day. It never stops,” said Whalen, who has spent more than 30 years volunteering with Fire Co. 3 after joining the United States Air Force. With his family’s firefighting bloodline dating back to his great-greatgrandfather in New Brunswick, Whalen was also one of more than a dozen township firefighters who responded to New York on Sept. 11, 2001, to provide mutual aid to a firehouse in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
In terms of recent events, the men were all on duty the week of a million-squarefoot warehouse fire at 1600 Livingston Ave. in July. DPW had a three-person crew working 24 hours each day, getting fuel for fire engines, transporting manpower, bringing food and water and cleaning up garbage.
There were 12 calls unrelated to the fire that day as well.
“Everything continues. Just like here [with the warehouse fire], you’ve got fires to fight,” Whalen said.
According to Amato, who joined a fire company in Franklin Township when he was 17 and then North Brunswick Fire Co. 3, while joining DPW as a laborer four years ago, working 20 hours as a firefighter during the warehouse fire came naturally.
“We get a lot of practice during snow season,” he said.
“During snow season, we plow until we’re done … until the snow stops snowing and the roads are clear,” Chaszar said, to which Whalen continued, “So for us it’s nothing to stay up 24 hours.”
“You don’t even think about it. It’s just something you do,” Vitanza said of working extended shifts, noting that the guys will wash their faces with snow, take a power nap or drink lots of caffeine to increase their stamina.
“With a fire, you constantly move, so you’re not thinking about it,” Amato said.
Despite all the hard work and tireless nights, the men are proud to be volunteers in town.
“When you sign up for the fire department, your reward is honor and glory,” Chaszar said. “You get a good feeling when you save a house, a life, a property.”
Contact Jennifer Amato at [email protected].