2 Newark firefighters put years of service on their last fire
When flames swept through a massive freighter in New Jersey’s Port Newark on Wednesday, it wasn’t some specialized nautical team venturing onto the blazing upper decks. They were city firefighters, whose last job might have been to run to a burning house or fallen cables, or treat someone with chest pains or help a woman give birth.
Neighborhood jobs.
“Regular guys” – that’s what people often call firefighters who die on the job. Two Newark men, Augusto Acabou, 45, known as Augie, and Wayne Brooks Jr., 49, ran onto the burning ship and never returned. Both regular guys, yes, but each specifically exceptional.
They were products of Engine 16 in the working-class, historically Portuguese neighborhood of Newark, the Ironbound, who worked in a red-brick firehouse on Ferry Street. It was a few hundred meters from the hustle and bustle of the main commercial street with its bakeries and restaurants, surrounded by houses and apartments, schools and shops.
The fire station and its residents were community facilities, teaching children fire prevention at the elementary school around the corner and chatting with familiar passersby.
In 2005, Matthew R. Cordasco was a fire chief with a spot to fill out Engine 16, and was attracted to a recent graduate of the academy, Wayne Brooks Jr.
“I had heard good things about him,” Mr Cordasco, now retired, said Thursday. “I said, ‘I have an opening,’ and he said, ‘Absolutely.’ He wanted to learn from the beginning.”
The young firefighter had been a fencer in high school, Mr. Cordasco heard, and attacked fire as he would confront an opponent in a match.
“He was always aggressive — he wanted to get in there, to the heat of the fire,” he said. “He wanted to be on the forefront, the man in front of the hose, put out the fire.”
Mr. Cordasco retired in 2010 and Mr. Brooks would move to a ladder company nearby. But he kept in touch with his old boss, recently beaming with pride when he told him that his daughter was going to be a nurse.
When Mr. Cordasco learned how his protégé had died Thursday — trapped after running onto the ship — he was devastated. He wasn’t surprised.
“I’m sure there was no hesitation,” Mr. Cordasco said. “He went flat out. You don’t know who’s there, you don’t have the ship’s manifest. You pull up and you go to work. That’s the mentality of a firefighter.”
Like Mr. Brooks, Mr. Acabou had been a young athlete, playing football at East Side High School in Newark. At 45, he was long past his helmet and pad years, but when he learned last winter that a former coach had been diagnosed with cancer, he rushed to help by taking him to the store for groceries or buying them himself. to get.
Typically, one of his two younger brothers, João Acabou, said, “He had the biggest heart.”
He was seen as a rising star at Engine 16 and had just passed the exam to reach the rank of Captain. “He’s a captain for us,” said Captain Helder Fonseca.
The firefighters work 24-hour shifts once every four days. The relationships forged are different from those measured in eight-hour office shifts. You eat together, wake up together and see each other a lot.
“He was always happy,” said Captain Fonseca. “I never saw him sad. He was just an ordinary boy, a real gentleman with lots of love.” He chuckled “He was great.”
Captain Jose Alvarez said greeting at the firehouse by Mr. Acabou was a ritual.
“He shook your hand and said, ‘Hey, pet, this is what we need to do, and this is what we’ve got. What do you want for lunch? We can cook or go out somewhere.’”
Every day he ran from his home past the nearby Newark Firefighters Union hall – “It didn’t matter if it was hot or cold,” said Eddie Paulo, a lifelong friend and vice president of the union. “He was out here with his weight vest on.”
The former football player took an outfield position for the fire department baseball team.
“When the bases were loaded and he popped the ball, he was so hard on himself,” said Mountainside’s 44-year-old Mr. Paulo. “He thought he had let us all down. We were there to tell him, ‘It’s okay. It’s just a game, man.'”
The cities that called the firefighters home began saying goodbye in their own way on Thursday.
Mr. Brooks lived in Union, and on Thursday morning, city firefighters arrived outside the white raised ranch house with bagels and orange juice and put up a red canopy to ward off the scorching sun. Police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers arrived in solemn procession.
Later, about 20 trial firefighters from Newark disembarked a red school bus to line up in formation outside the house. They stood in silence for several minutes before saluting and then lined up to offer their condolences.
“We come from a police, military, service-oriented family,” said Mr. Brooks’ cousin, Roger Terry Jr., a 54-year-old retired North Plainfield police officer.
The cousins were close-knit, each godfather to the other’s daughter, each manning a grill or a smoker at Mr. Brooks’ cookouts for his fellow firefighters—ribs, chicken, and Mr. Brooks’ favorite, crab cakes.
When a passing car honked its horn on Thursday, Mr. Terry raised his fist in greeting.
Outside the Ironbound Building where Mr. Acabou rose through the ranks, Locomotive 16, a small row of flowers grew along the brick walls.
A black ribbon bouquet was left by the Portuguese American Police Association. A bunch of blue daisies that a man in a fire department T-shirt had put down fell over. Captain Alvarez, who had worked closely with the man he called Augie, reached down and pushed them away and straightened them.
It seemed like these men were always there, always in the truck.
“When I was off duty and I saw a fire truck go by, both Augie and Brooks recognized me,” Captain Alvarez said. “Not everyone does that. And I’m not saying that because they died.
‘It’s just the way they were. You can ask anyone.”
Eliza Young, Erin Nolan And Tracey Tully reporting contributed.