Greenport Fire Department memorial service set for Sunday

The Greenport Fire Department will hold its annual memorial in honor of its fallen firefighters on Sunday. It begins outside the firehouse at 11 a.m., followed by a reception inside.

Thursday marked the forty-ninth anniversary of when former members Richie Sycz and Bruce Bellefountaine died during a response to a structure fire. Chief Wayne Miller said there have been years when the department has lost upwards of four or five members.

“It’s an important day. It’s important for these guys, and it’s a sign of respect for the whole department,” Chief Miller said. “For what it takes out of your day to come, it’s not asking a lot. The public is more than welcome to come in and break bread with everyone.”

Each year’s memorial service recognizes any members who have died since the previous June. George Capon, Jr. was the only member this year, having died on Dec. 19, 2025.

Former firefighter George Matthias, who died in August 1972 after suffering a fatal heart attack while directing traffic around a car fire on Third Street in Greenport, was added to the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial in 2024.

Chief Miller said it’s doubly important because some of the younger firefighters might not even know some of the past members.

Following the ceremony, Chief Miller, along with the other chiefs, will be placing flowers on the graves of the former firefighters. They will also be placing one in Mitchell Park by the rock that was dedicated to Mr. Sycz and Mr. Bellefountaine.

Community Mourns Deaths of Firemen

by Sam Campbell

Brruce Bellefountaine, 18, and Richie Sycz, 27, lost their lives Saturday night as the result of a fire in a frame house at 612 Carpenter Street.

The two fatalities were the first in the line of duty for the Greenport Fire Department, and the first multiple fire-fighter deaths in the history of Suffolk County.

The tragedy shocked not only the comunity, but the entire county and the state. Official notice of sympathy to be bereaved and commendations of courage in the discharge of duty to public service have been expressed on all levels.

It was perhaps the final bitter irony for Bellefountaine and Sycz.

The two men, Sycz, a member and former Captain of the Relief Hose Co., and Bellefountaine, a first year member of the Phenix Hook & Ladder Co., were not supposed to be in Greenport Saturday night. They were supposed to be in Sag Harbor, with the ”Shuckers,” the Greenport Fire Department’s race team, competing in the hose competition against other East End fire department teams, as part of the Sag Harbor “Historic Harbor” weekend.

Mr. Sycz and Mr. Bellefountaine never left Greenport Saturday afternoon, however, as on-again, off-again showers forced postponement of the scheduled under-the-lights firemen’s race team competition to Sunday.

Both turned to other plans. Mr. Bellefountaine passed the collection plate in the late Saturday afternoon Mass at St. Agnes’ Roman Catholic Church, the site of Wednesday’s funeral.

Mr. Sycz was readying himself for a Saturday night out, nothing special, just your basic good time, when the siren sounded around 8:25 p.m.

Both men were among the first firemen at the blaze at the Carpenter Street home of James Johnson, located near Stirling Avenue. Greenport Fire Chief Halsey Staples was actually the first man on the scene, having been telephoned news of the blaze prior to the home signaling the fire’s station. Chief Staples moved away from the house to coordinate the placement of the coming pieces of equipment. Carl Ruroede was another fireman quick to arrive.

Some five to ten minutes later Mr. Johnson’s wife Nora, who had rushed from a second-floor sitting room when the first floor tenant, Vera Smith, had shouted the building was on fire, and who was now standing outside, started screaming to the firemen that her ten-year-old child, Anita, was still inside the house.

In quick order Fireman Ruroede, 24, initiated a search of the house without airtank assistance, was immediately repulsed by the heavy smoke, passed out near the front steps and was taken to Eastern LongIsland Hospital where be was revived. None of the firemen could know, at this time, and Mrs. Jones didn’t know, that Mr. Jones had taken the ten-year-old daughter to the hospital prior to the blaze for treatment of an infected knee. All Mrs. Jones knew was that her daughter had sat most of the day in the apartment nursing her infected knee, and was presumably still in the apartment because she was nowhere to be seen on the street. All her other children were away visiting. It is so crystal clear with the advantage of hindsight: the firemen were searching the old frame house choked with dense, billowing smoke for someone who wasn’t there.

When Mr. Ruroede was repulsed by the heavy smoke, which county arson squad investigators said this week started with a defective electric blanket in a rear first-floor bedroom, Mr. Sycz and Mr. Bellefountaine donned the heavy gear, including the Scott Air-Paks, entered the house and began a room-to-room search. The Scott Air-Paks give the wearer 20 minutes of air with a warning bell designed to go off with three air minutes left, to tell the wearer be had better get himself back into a breathable atmosphere.

George Proferes, a 20-year-old fireman injured in the massive but fatality-less January 1977, Greenport blaze, and Chief Staples, also entered the house to search for the Jones girl. Both subsequently emerged from the house and were later hospitalized for assorted injuries.

When Mr. Bellefountaine and Mr. Sycz did not reemerge from the still smoking house 20 minutes later, Mr. Sycz’s father and Bruce Blasko, both Greenport firemen, entered the house, found the two men lying face down with no perceptible pulse in second-floor bedroom and helped hoist the two men out the window. The thickness of the smoke apparently receded in this period as vamps outside came closer to putting out the fire.

Despite intense cardiopulmonary resuscitation <CPR> efforts there and later at Eastern Long Island Hospital, both men succumbed, the victims of smoke inhalation. The CPR efforts on Mr. Bellefountaine were attempted by weary firemen and rescue personnel for an incredible 2-1/2 hours.

How the two firemen became trapped inside the smoke-filled and airless second floor room is still very much unknown, “and may never be known,” according to second Assistant Chief Steve Davis. Chief Staples offered two theories: first, that the two, blinded by the thick smoke, may have become disoriented, then trapped, and then lost their air supply.

“They may also have known their air was running out, but have just tried to look a couple steps further in hopes of finding the girl,” he said. Again the tragic irony; the two men, within grabbing distance of a a window and air, but blinded and disoriented by the choking smoke.”

That Mr. Bellefountaine and Mr. Sycz were the ones carrying out the room-to-room search is a tribute to their devotion to the department and the knowledge that firefighters have to move fast if they are to stand any chance at all to save human life.

Both of the two men were among the perhaps half-dozen men designated in each company to wear the Scott Air-Paks and perform the dangerous room-to-room searches. Mr. Bellefountaine reportedly had made almost all the alarms since joining the department on his first eligible day, his eighteenth birthday last November.

Mr. Sycz had been a member of the department for eight years, also since his eighteenth birthday, and was a former captain of the Relief Hose Co.

Just after Mr. Bellefountaine and Mr. Sycz were taken to Eastern Long Island Hospital, the fire was extinguished. Ten-year-old Anita Jones was discovered watching the fire with friend.

The Suffolk County Police Department’s Seventh Squad detectives are expected to issue a report on the blaze early next week.