Inside:
Post/View Condolences
JOSH GOHLKE
The Record - Bergen County, NJ
Photo Courtesy of Beth Balbierz
Passaic firefighters walking alongside the engine carrying the casket of Alberto Tirado during his funeral precession to St. Nicholas R.C. Church in Passaic on Monday.
|
At one point during the funeral Mass for Passaic Firefighter Alberto Tirado on Monday, a bagpiper stood in the center of St. Nicholas R.C. Church and blew out the notes of "Amazing Grace."
After several bars, the hymn -- sounding especially mournful on the instrument -- suddenly rose to an almost overwhelming volume. The piper had been joined by dozens of others who had gone unnoticed in the recesses of the cavernous church.
Thousands of firefighters from across the state and beyond converged on Passaic in an impressive show of support for a fallen brother. Some of them played the pipes and beat on drums, but most of them just stood -- four or five rows deep and two blocks long -- in a silent, white-gloved salute.
"Al was a member of a unique family next to his immediate family, of those that wear the badge of a firefighter," Passaic Fire Chief Lou Imparato said during the Mass. "Our brother Alberto Tirado has fallen in the service of his fellow man, and no greater eulogy can be said for anyone."
Police and firefighter estimates of the out-of-town crowd ranged from 2,000 to 3,500. In full-dress uniform, they met the procession on Washington Place near Main Avenue, where a series of cars and fire engines passed under a giant American flag hoisted by two hook-and-ladder trucks.
Moving to the slow chiming of a bell at St. Nicholas, the procession was led by sheriff's officers on motorcycles, police cars, firetrucks, a color guard, and a drum and pipe corps. On the last fire engine was Tirado's casket, covered by an American flag.
Casual onlookers also turned out along the route, from Bizub-Quinlan Funeral Home on Van Houten Avenue in Clifton to the church on Washington. Most seemed to know at least a sketch of the story of Tirado's death.
Wilson Lopez, a 31-year-old security guard who lives on Third Street, said he knew Tirado only from talk in the neighborhood and a detour the fire caused in his evening commute.
Photo Courtesy of Beth Balbierz
A Passaic firefighter fighting back tears Monday during the graveside service for Alberto Tirado, the Passaic Firefighter killed in a building fire last Wednesday.
|
"Every day, where he died, people are placing flowers," Lopez said.
Tirado, whose survivors include his wife, three children, and a stepchild, was well-known in the community not only for his nine years as a firefighter. He worked as a postman -- a uniform that was also well-represented at Monday's services -- and managed the recently closed Clifton Theatre. A small contingent of Marines attended the funeral, too, marking his service in the Persian Gulf war and with the Marine Corps Reserves.
Despite all those opportunities to know Tirado, most of his mourners Monday did not. Still, they said they were strangers to him only in the conventional sense.
"I never met Al Tirado," Rahway fire Capt. Chet Kolesa, chairman of the state firefighter union's memorial committee, said following the Mass. "But I'm not ashamed to say I was crying in there."
Passaic Fire Capt. George Kelly said there is an inexplicable understanding among those who work the same dangerous job.
"These guys didn't know Al," he said, pointing around after the services. "But if it was one of them, God forbid, we would be there."
Kelly added, "As long as I have to go on this job, I hope I never have to go to another one of these."
Though most of the departments represented were from New Jersey, seven men made the trip from Worcester, Mass., where six firefighters died in a warehouse blaze last year.
"We just want to pay our respects; we're definitely grateful for all the support we got when we lost six guys," said Worcester Firefighter Norberto Hernandez.
Passaic has lost six firefighters in its 90-year history as a paid department. Tirado was the first one to die in more than 30 years.
Tirado was searching the 13-apartment, three-story building on Market Street for a woman and two children believed missing, when he was cornered by flames rising from the second floor and ran out of air. All 60 residents of the tenement had escaped.
Imparato said last week that Tirado's decision to go to the third floor, above the flames, was a risky one.
"He could have stopped and said, 'We can't go anymore,' but that's not Al," Imparato said Monday. "For a moment the world may take notice, but then life goes on as usual, for them."
Related:
