Carle Place Rookie Firefighter Pulled His Chief From a Burning Roof Collapse

When the roof gave way beneath Assistant Chief William Geddish during a raging house fire in Roslyn Heights last October, it was a firefighter with barely a year of experience who reached down and pulled him out. Charles Karen, a volunteer with the Carle Place Fire Department, has now been named the 2026 New York Firefighter of the Year for that rescue, an honor recognizing an act that saved the life of a 23-year veteran of the department.

The fire began as a deck fire around 9 a.m. on October 29, 2025, at a home on Pinetree Lane in Roslyn Heights before spreading into the garage and attic, according to the Firefighters Association of the State of New York. The blaze grew serious enough to trigger a Signal 10 mutual aid call, bringing in Carle Place Hook, Ladder & Hose Co. No. 1 alongside the Albertson Fire Department to help battle the flames. As reported by News12 Long Island, Geddish was operating as part of the ladder crew at the scene when the roof failed beneath him.

A Rookie Reaches Into the Attic

Roughly 20 minutes into the fire, Geddish was assigned to vertical ventilation on the roof, a tactic meant to release smoke and heat and improve survival conditions inside the structure, per FASNY's account. Geddish, who brought more than 23 years of firefighting experience to the operation, fell through the roof and into the burning attic up to his waist, according to News12 Long Island. Karen, who had been on the job just over a year, was the one positioned to respond.

Karen grabbed Geddish by the upper body and pulled him free from above, working without a charged hose line in place, FASNY's account states. He transmitted a Mayday call, then stayed with Geddish to stabilize him before helping package him into a Stokes basket for EMS transport. Geddish was subsequently hospitalized, spending three weeks in the burn unit at Weill Cornell Medicine, per News12 Long Island's reporting.

The Chief Speaks Out

Geddish later credited Karen directly for his survival. Speaking to News12 Long Island, Geddish said Karen's “courage, training, skill and willingness to risk his life” saved him, and that Karen gave him the chance to return home to his wife and two daughters. The exchange underscores just how narrow the margin was on that roof — a rookie without a charged line, a veteran chief half-swallowed by a collapsing attic, and seconds that determined the outcome.

Local Honor, Then a Statewide Stage

Before the statewide recognition, Carle Place's own department honored Karen locally. On May 23, 2026, the Carle Place Fire Department awarded him its Gold Medal of Valor, the department's highest internal honor for extreme personal courage, in a ceremony attended by his family and fellow firefighters, according to the department.

The bigger stage came Thursday, when FASNY formally presented Karen with the 2026 Firefighter of the Year Award, sponsored by VFIS, during its 154th Annual Convention at Holiday Valley in Ellicottville, according to FASNY. The ceremony was held in New York, and the selection recognized a mutual aid rescue that FASNY says paired a rookie with barely a year of experience against a life-threatening structural collapse.

A Department Rooted in the Hamlet

Carle Place Fire Department, organized in 1910 and known locally as “The Hamlet Boys,” counts roughly 60 active volunteer members who respond to more than 800 fire, rescue, and EMS calls each year, the department notes. Karen's ties to the community run deeper than his uniform: in October 2024, he returned to Cherry Lane Elementary School in Carle Place to teach fire safety to second-graders in the very classroom where he once sat as a student, according to the Carle Place School District.

A Shrinking Volunteer Force

Karen's rescue also lands amid a broader staffing strain on Long Island's volunteer fire service. Nassau County's volunteer firefighter ranks have declined by roughly 4,000 members since 2001, leaving the county with about 6,500 active volunteers in 2026, per a Facebook post from a regional firefighting group. That decline has made mutual aid calls, like the one that sent Carle Place crews to Roslyn Heights, an increasingly routine necessity rather than an exception.

The stakes of that staffing gap extend well beyond Nassau County. A 2023 financial impact study commissioned by FASNY estimated that New York's roughly 80,000 volunteer firefighters save the state's taxpayers approximately $4.7 billion annually in avoided municipal salaries, benefits, and capital costs, according to the Association of Fire Districts of the State of New York. FASNY itself, founded in 1872 and renamed in 2021, represents those volunteers statewide and operates the FASNY Firemen's Home and Museum of Firefighting in Hudson, New York.

For Carle Place, the recognition of one young volunteer's split-second decision on a collapsing roof stands as both a personal milestone and a reminder of what's riding on departments like his staying staffed. Geddish's survival, and his public thanks to the firefighter who pulled him out, gave the department a moment worth celebrating even as the broader volunteer ranks it depends on continue to thin.