You’ll find them running into burning buildings — but not on the payroll.
When 101-year-old Julie Ryan began volunteering at the Rockaway Point firehouse in 1944, she felt she had no other choice — most of the male firefighters at the department had been drafted to fight in World War II, and someone needed to step in and hold down the fort.
“All the men had to leave, that’s what happened here,” she told the Daily News from her Breezy Point home in Queens — the original Rockaway Point firehouse, built in 1909.
“We used to have our drills on the floor here,” she said. “In this room itself, there was a whole fire truck.”
The mother of 10, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of 11 said not a day goes by that she doesn’t reminisce about her days as a young volunteer.