Westhampton Beach St. Patrick's Day parade honors first responders who battled brush fire

On March 8, Steve Frano planned to attend a celebratory fundraising event for the upcoming Westhampton Beach St. Patrick’s Day parade, where he would formally receive his sash as grand marshal.

But by midafternoon, as a growing cloud of smoke mushroomed over his hometown, Frano, 74, said the fundraiser was suddenly the farthest thing from his mind.

“I’m too busy fighting fire,” he recalled Saturday.

Frano, a 50-year member of the Westhampton Beach Fire Department, manned the passenger seat of the department’s brush truck, part of a six-person crew on the front line of the biggest brush fire the area has seen in more than a decade. The Westhampton blaze, the largest of four that day, consumed about 400 acres of woodland. (The fundraiser, meanwhile, was postponed to March 29.)

One week later, Long Islanders from across the region lined the streets of Westhampton Beach to thank many of the first responders whose work spared the area significant damage.

The annual parade — with the theme “Is there a volunteer within you?” — took on added meaning as paradegoers held signs saying, "Thank you," and firefighters and EMS workers who marched were greeted with raucous applause along the route.

“I just want the people to appreciate the volunteers,” said Frano, the 57th grand marshal in the parade’s history. Speaking before the event, his goatee dyed green, Frano said the theme had been established well before the fire.

'So grateful'

Firefighters from departments in Quogue, East Quogue, East Moriches, Eastport, Southampton, Flanders, Riverhead and Hampton Bays all participated in the parade, which featured the familiar makings of the Irish holiday: pipe bands, green beads and shamrock-themed attire.

Longtime firefighters Mario Mendoza and Bill Dalton said they both joined the Westhampton Fire Department shortly after the Sunrise Fire of 1995, which burned 4,500 acres of pine barrens.

Dalton helped coordinate communication during the March 8 fire and Mendoza assisted as fire police.

“It’s kind of strange, a week ago, all hell broke loose,” Dalton said Saturday morning, as he stood among dozens of fellow firefighters enjoying drinks and food before the parade began.

Mendoza said they were fortunate the fire didn’t occur the same weekend as the parade or even during the week, when volunteers are at work.

“It was just a great response,” he said.

Diane Hoefer, of East Quogue, held a sign thanking the volunteers. She said she was “really scared” for her sister, who lives close to where the fires erupted.

“All these people came out and they put the fire out in a day, it was really wonderful,” she said.

Southampton Supervisor Maria Moore, who marched with fellow town board members and other elected officials, said she’s “so grateful to each and every one of" the first responders.

Mark O’Donnell, a longtime Westhampton resident who attends the parade each year, said “it was the best” seeing the volunteers in the parade after what they did a week earlier.

He recalled watching aircraft take off from the Gabreski Air National Guard Base and seeing a HC-130J Combat King II circle the fire.

The Air National Guard deployed two HC-130s and an HH-60W Jolly Green II search and rescue helicopter to dump water on the blaze, according to a news release by the 106th Rescue Wing.

“It was crazy,” O’Donnell said.

Westhampton firefighters spent this past Thursday and Friday cleaning the vehicles they would drive down the parade route of Mill Road and Main Street.

Except for one.

The brush truck, while cleared of debris, remained mucked in dirt from when it left the woods — a reminder of the dangers firefighters confronted exactly one week earlier.

By Joe Werkmeister

joe.werkmeister@newsday.com

Joe Werkmeister covers the towns of Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and previously worked as the editor of two North Fork community newspapers.

---