On the night of October 29 last year, a deck fire in Roslyn Heights burned its way into the house it was attached to, and Carle Place volunteer firefighters went to the roof to vent it. Under one of them, a section of that roof gave way. Assistant Chief William Geddish, 23 years on the job, dropped through the collapse into the burning attic below. The firefighter who grabbed him and pulled him out had been a firefighter for about a year. Last Thursday, the Firefighters Association of the State of New York named that firefighter, Charles Karen of Carle Place Hook, Ladder and Hose Co. No. 1, the state's Firefighter of the Year.

What happened on the roof

Venting a roof is one of the more counterintuitive jobs in firefighting. Crews climb on top of a burning building and cut a hole in it, on purpose, because giving the heat and smoke a way out above makes the fire survivable for everyone underneath. It is also one of the more dangerous jobs, because the fire below is eating the very structure the crew is standing on.

That is what failed in Roslyn Heights. As the Carle Place crew worked, the section under Geddish collapsed and he went through it, sinking toward the fire in the attic space below. The state association's account of the night credits Karen with recognizing the collapse immediately and pulling Geddish free of the hole and away from the heat without hesitating, then staying with the injured chief, helping stabilize him and lowering him to the medics waiting below.

The experience gap between the two men is what makes the story remarkable. Geddish had more than two decades in the fire service. Karen had roughly one year. The award exists for exactly this kind of night, and the association presented it to Karen last Thursday at its annual convention in Ellicottville, in Cattaraugus County.

Three weeks in the burn unit, and a recovery

Geddish survived. He spent three weeks recovering in the burn unit at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, one of the region's dedicated burn centers, before coming home. A roof collapse into a working attic fire is the kind of event fire departments train for and hope never to see, and the difference between a recovery and a funeral in those first seconds is usually whoever happens to be within arm's reach, and what they do.

A big week for Long Island's volunteers

Karen's award was not the only one Long Island carried home from Ellicottville. At the same convention, the association named West Sayville's junior firefighter program its Youth Group of the Year, an award that has now gone to a Nassau or Suffolk program every year since 2016. Two of the state's top honors for the volunteer fire service, in one week, both to Long Island houses.

The association has represented New York's volunteer firefighters since 1872, and its Firefighter of the Year award is the top individual honor a volunteer can receive in the state. It went this year to a man who was newer to the fire service than almost anyone else on the scene, and who did the one thing the night demanded.

The part worth remembering

Carle Place's fire protection, like almost all of Nassau and Suffolk's, is volunteer. The people who went to the roof in Roslyn Heights that night were neighbors who left their houses for free to do it. One of them fell into a burning attic, and another one, a year into the job, went in after him and got him back. Both of them are home. That is the whole story, and it is a better one than most.