The three firefighters stood silently and watched as a metal extension ladder was raised against a garage during a training exercise.

It was a simple task, one they themselves had done numerous times, yet all three looked on intently.

“This is a very important step,” said Moishe Eisenbach, 30, of New Square. “You don’t know when you’re going to need one.”

Not long ago, it would have been hard to imagine Eisenbach and the other two New Square men training to be the village’s first members of the Hillcrest Fire Department, among just a handful of Orthodox Jewish firefighters in the county.

But since May, the three men have learned – through drills, tests and responding to nearly 300 fire calls – what it takes to be a firefighter in one of the county’s busiest and largest fire districts. Firefighting, they agreed, was more than just taking a hose off a truck and spraying water on a fire.

“People are depending on us,” Eisenbach recently said as he stood outside the county’s Fire Training Center, where he and Yisroel Lapchinsky, 27, and Joseph Braun, 26, were completing a state-required course on scene support.

The trio’s immersion into the firefighting community comes after months of growing tensions between the fire department and village officials.

For years, firefighters had complained to state and local officials that code violations in the densely populated village made it difficult to respond to alarms. The dispute intensified in April when firefighters filed a criminal complaint, claiming they had cornered two boys they believed were setting fires, but that a village official helped them escape, saying they were involved in a religious ritual. The incident led to a hostile confrontation between firefighters and a gathering crowd.

While the three “pioneers,” as fire officials refer to them, say their desire to join the department was not political, many firefighters believe it may serve as a bridge to mend the rift that has, at times, divided the two.

“I feel very strongly that the relationship between the village and the fire department has come a long way,” New Square Deputy Mayor Israel Spitzer said. “I’m very confident that in a short while, we’ll see an improvement from the past and the relationship from the fire department will be a great partnership with the village. Our concern is safety for the village, and that is the same concern that the Hillcrest Fire Department has.”

Spitzer said the village had hired Spring Valley Building Inspector Manny Carmona in June to be New Square’s building and fire inspector, and Carmona had worked to improve building and fire codes in the village. Carmona reviews all new development plans, Spitzer said.

Carmona said he was initially apprehensive about taking the job, but found that on his daily inspections most residents and property owners were willing to address violations, such as needing to install sprinklers.

“I think it’s coming along great,” he said. The operator of a bus company, he said, recently put in a request for an electronic alarm connection between its New Square station and the county’s emergency dispatching unit. “The community of New Square wants to change. They want more safety.”

“Safety,” is the word used most in talks with Eisenbach, Lapchinsky and Braun.

“We’re residents of Rockland County. We want to support the county we live in,” said Lapchinsky, a bus driver and father of two girls. “And, of course, develop a better bond with the village and fire department.”

“We were all of the same mind,” added Eisenbach, a father of five. “We saw how fast fires were going, and to put them out we have to be trained. We want to help others out and help the community. We work together. As one family.”

The three are being trained to serve as exterior firefighters because federal regulations require that a face mask create a tight seal on a firefighter’s face. Facial hair, a tradition in the Orthodox community, can interfere with the seal and so people with it are not allowed to fight fires indoors, said George Zayas, a state fire instructor who conducted the nine-week scene support training course.

Zayas, assistant chief with the West Haverstraw Fire Department and a Stony Point police officer, said the three men were trained in other aspects of scene support, such as car extrications, handling ropes and knots, hose stretching and emergency vehicle operation.

“It’s coming from the heart,” said Zayas, who has been training firefighters for more than a decade. “They want to participate and they want to help out. They’re taking steps to do the right thing.”

Hillcrest Fire Chief Tim Wren welcomed his department’s newest additions and said the men could also help in plenty of administrative tasks.

“They seem genuine,” Wren said. “They joined for the right reasons. I think a lot of people outside the organization are ignorant to the fact that we are volunteers and all the work that is involved.”

Both Wren and his older brother, Gordon Wren Jr., the county’s fire coordinator and a Hillcrest firefighter, said they saw the additions to the Hillcrest Fire Department as helping to address concerns about development in the village.

The elder Wren said since the trio were voted into the department, Dumpster fires, often seen as nuisances, have “virtually come to a stop.”

“The best way to get people’s respect is to work alongside them,” he said.

Braun, a builder, said his view on firefighting had changed and he expected to further his training. He said two other village residents had expressed interest in joining, but busy family lives prevented them.

“We’re independent. Whoever wants to follow will follow,” he said, of future New Square volunteers. “We’re proud to put on the uniform.”

(The Journal News)