Trump came to Long Island to thank first-responders — I saw first-hand how hard their jobs really are

Life for the Nassau County Fire Service Academy trainees who got a personal thank-you from President Trump last week is far from glamorous — but just try to extinguish their drive.

The volunteer trainees spend grueling weeks dousing set-up blazes and crawling around in pitch-black, close-quarter indoor mazes at 120 degrees or higher to prepare to keep Long Islanders safe when they need it most.

“I don’t call it brave. I call it committed,” Chief Instructor Paul Wilders told The Post.

“If we teach you how to do it safely … it’s not about feeling brave anymore. It’s about feeling confident.”

The Post spent a recent day in the life of the all-volunteer force, which deploys graduates across Nassau’s 70 departments after what’s usually three hours of once-a-week training in hellish temperatures for about four months.

The group’s work is so commendable that Trump acknowledged its members with a wave and shout-out “thank you” during a visit to the Nassau County Police Academy on Friday to bolster GOP gubernatorial hopeful and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

“We have people from other counties come to our academy because the training is so realistic,” said Wilders, also commissioner of the North Merrick Fire Department.

Days after the presidential visit, departments from all over Nassau banded together for search and rescue during a rare Long Island tornado and to aid people trapped in their cars on flooded roadways and parking lots during Thursday night’s wild storms.

The next generation of heroes work in all kinds of environments at the Old Bethpage facility, from houses to getting on ladder trucks for high-floor buildings, simulated burning warehouses and boats and an actual LIRR car for train fires.

Medical and hazmat training are also major parts of certification, as Wilders is phasing in training for more modern issues such as fires spawned by electric vehicles. 

The Nassau academy also stands out for using “live fuel packages” for training, which are blazes that have to be physically extinguished inside and out of its black-out buildings. 

“We light these buildings on fire,” he said of the non-combustible training structures.

Other academies typically use a gas-fed fuel “which doesn’t produce the same type of smoke, doesn’t produce as much heat, and also can be shut down with the flip of a switch,” he said.

Feeling the burn — in the first-person

Even the easy stuff for trainees is hard for ordinary people such as myself.

I learned that quickly — right after tugging on nearly 40 pounds of equipment and a helmet. 

The gear did not even include a self-contained breathing apparatus or heavy metal tools such as a halligan bar used to save lives in real-deal situations.

Wilders tasked me with putting out a diesel and gas fire on a pile of wooden pallets using a nearly 2-and-a-half-gallon water can, which you carry in one hand and spray with the other.

Getting within a few feet of the shooting flames feels like putting your head next to a lit stovetop, and in August 85-degree heat, you’re already dripping head to toe in bunker gear before feeling that fireball on your exposed face.

It was heat like I never felt before, and that got my heart racing as I raced the clock to spray the near 10-foot blaze.

And dousing one spot does not guarantee that more fire won’t pop up again, unlike how it looks on TV and in the movies.

Watching those flames reignite in a split second as your water runs out — even in a safely controlled environment — is certainly intense.

It makes you think about what could happen if reliable people such as Wilders aren’t there for back-up.

The reward for putting down the fire was heading to smoke training across campus, where — lucky me, already drenched in my T-shirt and shorts underneath the gear — got to trudge along in the heavy boots and pants.

The resistance felt like wading through a few inches of snow while toting heavier-than-usual football shoulder pads on top from the pulling suspenders.  

You really feel that gear weighing you down every minute it’s on, and that’s what really got to me more than doing the tasks at hand.

While I was already gassed and coming down from the exhilaration of putting out flames, Wilders had me crawl into an entirely dark building entrance using synthetic and non-toxic smoke simulations.

Since I have a beard, it’s against regulations to use an air pack for the real stuff. 

Trying to do that and keep my bearings while fatigued made me realize one thing: Thank goodness nobody is counting on me to save their life today. 

Wilders has the right people for that.

He told me recruitment numbers are “slowly creeping up” after New York fire officials warned of concerning lows in early 2026.

“Nassau County alone, we graduated about between April and June about 180 to 200 firefighters,” he said. 

“Now we just graduated, through July and August, about another 90.”