Three Spencerport fire fighters were recognized at the Rochester Safety Council's Fire Service Appreciation Luncheon for acts of bravery at a fatal house fire on Brower Road in Ogden.

"All three of these men are very humble about what happened that morning -- most firemen are," said Spencerport Fire Chief Chris Wood. "They all feel that they just did what they were trained to do. Firemen are trained all the time to perform lifesaving measures, but, in true fact, few ever really get the chance to do it in real life."

Receiving awards were Fire Fighter Bill Hallinan and his crew members, Ray Young and Matt Palermo. In the early morning hours of August 20, the Spencerport Fire Department responded to the report of a house fire at 150 Brower Road, located off Route 259 south of Route 31. In a report on the fire, Chief Wood noted that when the department arrived, fire was showing on two sides of the first floor and the nearest hydrant was 2,400 feet away.

Upon arrival at the scene, neighbors who stated there was an elderly man inside the building on the first floor, met the fire fighters. Truck 2932, driven by Bob Kuzmicki and crewed by Hallinan, reported to the rear of the structure and performed a Vent, Enter and Search procedure. As he entered the window, he discovered there was no door to keep back the fast-moving fire, and without the protection of a hand line, he completed the search of the room under extreme heat and smoke conditions.

As Hallinan entered the rear of the building, fire fighters Young and Palermo advanced a hand line on a well-involved first floor fire. As they advanced through the first room attacking the fire and searching for the elderly man, Palermo reached to the right to feel for the victim, and as he did so, he fell to the right since the floor had burned away. The only thing stopping him from falling into the basement, which was well involved in fire, was the fact that his air cylinder was caught on a door frame. Unable to grasp anything above him to aid in pulling himself up and with no floor to push off on, Palermo called out the nozzleman Ray Young. While continuing to direct the nozzle for protection, Young reached out to Palermo and pulled him to safety.

"So far this year, our department has responded to four working structure fires. Two of them have been situations where someone has perished (fatal fires) and this is very hard on the members of our department. In both of these cases, we had no chance to change the outcome for the residents because the fires were just too far advanced. But, we continue to train and be prepared for the chance to change the outcome for one of our citizens" should the need arise, Wood said.