This place is an oasis for children who have had the very worst of luck, kids who have literally been burned in life.

It's called The Children's Burn Camp, and it's a summer camp just for kids who are the victims of burns.

                "For one week every July since 1991, we have recruited kids aged 8 to 18 from the hospital burn centers of New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts — even kids from Canada," says retired New York Fire Department Lt. Jim Fitzgerald, a camp counselor. "It used to be located in Massachusetts but this year we have secured a boy scout camp in Union, Conn., and we take these kids we call 'burn survivors' and give them a week doing what other, luckier kids do in a summer camp — fishing, boating, swimming, archery, arts and crafts."

The all-volunteer staff consists for the most part of firefighters from different states, cities and towns who donate a week of their vacations to these kids.

"It really is an amazing experience for the kids and for us counselors," says Fitzgerald.

There might be nothing worse than being a burnt kid.

The last time I was up at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center Burn Unit, it was to visit the daughter of a friend who had been scalded with a simple cup of tea. The irony was that she is the daughter of a retired firefighter who takes more precautions than most of us do in protecting his kid from the dangers of burns.

"No one is safe," he told me. "It can happen to anyone, anytime, anyplace."

Thankfully, his daughter's burns were treated swiftly and she made a complete and miraculous recovery. But while there, I saw other kids who were not so lucky. One kid, as bright and engaging as a Broadway spotlight, was severely disfigured, his skin like melted wax. He spoke and joked and laughed and played like any other kid with a full life spread out like a red carpet before him. But he would wear the burn scars for a lifetime and always be perceived by the ignorant among us as "different."

But he isn't different.

He's just a kid, and under the damaged skin he is bubbling with all the exploding desires and curiosities and hunger for knowledge and experience as any other kid.

No one understands the horror of burn victims more than a guy like Fitzgerald, who spent 34 years carrying them out of flaming buildings.

"Any burn victim is a horror," Fitzgerald says. "But a kid is the worst. The problem is that if the kid is lucky enough to survive the physical burns, he or she has to go back to school [and be] amongst . . . other kids who perceive them as 'freaks,' because their scars are visible. Or because their gait will be altered because they cannot bend a knee the same as a regular kid. Or because their fingers or their ears have been burnt off. But these are truly courageous kids, and they learn to compensate and excel."

Every summer, 45 to 50 kids — rich, middle-class and poor, of every race and denomination — gather at the camp and get to act like, well, kids, without anyone treating them as if they were different.

"Like kids anywhere, some are pains in the backside, some need more individual attention than others, but they all have a great time just being kids. And they find comfort in each other's company knowing they are not alone. They form lasting friendships, and that camaraderie gives them strength back in the real world."

Mostly because of the high insurance rates, a week in camp costs about $600 to $700 per child. The money is raised by sponsors such as the Fire Safety Directors Association of Greater New York, most of whose members are retired firefighters who work in private industry.

"We're having a dinner-dance fund-raiser on April 17 at the Fort Hamilton Officer's Club," says Laurie McDonnell, a spokeswoman for the association. "Tickets are $75, and the money goes to the burn camp. I've also already sold about $3,000 in ads in our journal."

Fitzgerald says that every year the association also runs a golf outing that raises some $5,000 for the camp. And individual firehouses such as Engine 75, Ladder 33 and Battalion 19 throw a Christmas party for these burn survivor kids every year.

"Another firehouse in Canarsie sponsors a boat ride for them every summer," he says. "St. Charles' school in Staten Island does a penny-a-page-read-a-thon that raises about $7,000 a year. All this helps make these burn-survivor kids feel and participate in normal activities that other kids experience. Because behind the burns, these are just regular kids — like ones you have and love at home."

 Send donations to the camp to
N.Y. Firefighter's Burn Center Foundation, 

21 Asch Loop
Bronx, N.Y., 10475.