Riverhead Firefighter Recounts 57 Years of Service

Firefighting is in Robert Taylor's blood. The 77-year-old ex-fire chief's grandfather, Leon Zambriski, was one of the founding members of the Riverhead Volunteer Fire Department, and his uncle and older brother also volunteered as firefighters. But Taylor said he was drawn to the department for a different reason.

"To tell you the truth it was the racing that attracted me," Taylor said.

The Riverhead native joined the department 57 years ago when he was 21-years-old, then the age limit for new volunteer firefighters, and was among 24 other 50-year veterans of the department .

After serving as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, Taylor signed up with the town's all-Polish unit called "Eagle Hose." Back then, he recalled, "the minutes of the company were taken in Polish." Now, he said, things are much different.

"For one thing, we had one chief's car," he joked. "Now we have four!"

Taylor volunteered as a firefighter for several years, fighting some of the biggest fires in Riverhead's history. One fire, a blaze at the now defunct Havil's Jewelers of Riverhead on Main Street, stuck out in Taylor's memory.

Taylor had been a firefighter for 4 or 5 years when the fire occurred and was inside the building when pressure from the smoke built up and finally exploded.

"I was standing upstairs on the second floor. When she lit off, it blew me right out of the building," Taylor said. He emerged unharmed from the blast.

Taylor also join the fire department's racing team, and won several first place town medals, though he was too modest to name how many. He was later promoted to 3rd Assistant Chief and eventually served as the Fire Chief from 1980 to 1982.

"I was never in bed the whole time," Taylor said. "I had a red phone next to my bed [for emergencies]."

Ironically, Taylor said he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day while he was a firefighter.

"There's a picture of him on one of the ladders," said Taylor's friend Karen Glover, "And here he is holding the hose in one arm with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth."

Taylor said he quit smoking the day after he stepped down as fire chief. Looking back, Taylor said he has no regrets.

"It's a fraternity, so to speak," he said. "I enjoyed being a fireman."