Take the Coney Island-bound Q subway line to Kings Highway, transfer to the B31 bus and eventually you will arrive in the small, isolated community of Gerritsen Beach. In the heart of this community exists the last volunteer fire department in the borough – one of nine left in the city.
The Fire Department of New York has been protecting the lives and property of city residents since 1865. But before the establishment of the country’s largest paid fire department, New Yorkers relied on volunteer fire companies to protect neighborhoods. Some hard-to-reach neighborhoods still maintain volunteer departments.
According to the latest statistics from the National Fire Protection Association, some 72 percent of firefighters in the U.S. are volunteers – or vollies, as they call themselves. The vollies of Gerritsen Beach display a strong sense of community that has safeguarded the neighborhood since the department’s opening in 1922.
Doreen Garson, the assistant fire chief of the Gerritsen Beach Volunteer Fire Department, has been a vollie for 24 years. For her, volunteering is about giving back to her community.
