Mourners gathered at St. Paul?s Lutheran Church in Northport Saturday to bid farewell to volunteer firefighter Charles Varese, who died in a car accident earlier this week.

Varese, 25, was riding his motorcycle to work Wednesday when police say a Stony Brook man who was high on drugs crashed into him on Route 25-A in Centerport.

Family and friends remembered Varese for his dedication to firefighting and the work he put into raising money for cancer research.

?He is all that?s good with young people nowadays,? said Northport Fire Commissioner Tony Graziano. ?He volunteered. [He] loved this community.?

Varese became a junior firefighter at 14. Family members said he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, the chief of the Northport Fire Department, and his uncle, Centerport?s fire chief. In 2004, he received an award for saving people from a burning building.

?It?s just a tremendous tragedy,? said Phil Weber, a family friend. ?It?s something that shouldn?t have happened but it did happen. It just shows you how fragile life is.?