Historic fire pumper returns to Hicksville after decades-long sojourn

Charles DiStefano remembers the red, 1948 Seagrave pumper during its heyday on the front lines battling blazes for the Hicksville Fire Department.

"I rode on the truck to a couple fires, and I was only 21 years old," said DiStefano, 86, who joined the volunteer department in 1959 and has served there ever since.

A 14-foot workhorse, the red truck is capable of pumping 750 pounds of water a minute and served the community until August 1960. The truck's tenure came to an abrupt end after its pump seized up while fighting a massive blaze that had ripped through the Kantor Bros. Tire Co. on Broadway, DiStefano recalls. The blaze injured nine firefighters and caused $300,000 in damages, according to Newsday's archives.

But now, after a decades-long multistate journey up and down the East Coast, the truck has returned home to Hicksville's Emergency Co. 5.

On a recent November morning, DiStefano was looking over the truck's faded red paint. The truck's return was miraculous, he said. Most trucks with similar timelines end in a salvage yard — lost to time.

"We were fortunate enough to still see it survive," DiStefano said. "I thought we would never see it."

Fire officials are now working to restore the nearly 80-year-old truck in time for the company's 100th anniversary in 2028.

After the 1960 fire, the district sold the truck to the Salisbury Fire Department in Vermont. Later, a private collector bought the truck and eventually stored it in a Connecticut barn. It stayed there for decades, and members of the department assumed the truck was lost for good. Over the summer, the collector's son reached out to Hicksville fire officials. He wanted to know if the company wanted to retrieve the lost truck from Sudbury, Connecticut — free of charge, said Karl Schweitzer, 61, a former fire chief and historian for the company.

That’s how, on a rainy November Thursday morning, multiple generations of Hicksville firefighters were able to connect with a fire truck they remembered well from their early days with the company.

“It’s full circle,” Schweitzer said. With the fire company's centennial only four years away, work on the truck is set to accelerate. “In 2028, we want it roadworthy and ready to go," he said. 

Cliff Doering, a 99-year-old retired Hicksville firefighter and World War II veteran of the U.S. Marines, was among the firefighters who worked on the truck decades ago. He joined the Hicksville Fire Department in 1952.

As he took in the sight of the pumper, he recalled the process of making the truck operational and ready to fight fires. 

He said he “would love to see it” restored to its original state.

Doering was Owen Magee’s first mentor. A U.S. Navy veteran and former fire chief, Magee, 86, said the two “just hit it off” when they first met. The truck — now settled in a Hicksville warehouse — serves as a link connecting generations of Hickvsille firefighters.

“I was just a young kid hanging out in the firehouse,” Magee said. Speaking of this generation's volunteers, he said: “They’re so lucky they got this."

A mechanic for the fire company is working to restore the engine — the first step in getting the truck in working order, Schweitzer said. The fire company is accepting donations and plans to hold a raffle to raise money for the effort, he added.

DiStefano said the truck's return to Hicksville "gives you a sense of community."

"It just brings back memories," he said. 

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ