Firefighters share a bond that civilians and most family members cannot relate to. Just as this issue was to be printed, a ceremony was to be held in Boston. The purpose was to dedicate a memorial for the nine firefighters who answered their last alarm in the Hotel Vendome collapse in 1972. This ceremony was 25 years in the making, and a memorial fund was established to perpetuate the memory of those nine firefighters, to honor their descendants and to recognize the noble efforts of all members, past, present and future, of the Boston Fire Department. Nothing gave me greater honor than to be chosen to be in the honor guard positioned on the steps of the church at the funeral for FDNY Firefighter Al Ronaldson, a friend who died in the line of duty over five years ago. More than 10,000 firefighters from many states attended the funeral in a town of 8,000 people.
As I travel across the country, I always like to visit the sites of major or historic fires. It doesn't matter whether it's Kansas City, at the site of the aboveground gasoline tank explosion that killed five firefighters; Detroit, where three firefighters died in two separate incidents in a vacant warehouse; or Indianapolis, where two firefighters were killed in a flashover during a hotel fire. I observed the latter stages of the Waldbaum's fire in Brooklyn, NY, where a rain roof collapsed over a truss roof, killing six firefighters, and the Hackensack, NJ, auto dealership truss roof collapse at which five firefighters died. When I take my new firefighters on a walk-through of a truss roof supermarket in my own district, I still get chills thinking about Hackensack.
It's always sad to hear about incidents like New Bloomington or West Helena. The fire service has changed a great deal in just the last few years but we still have a long way to go. We may not be able to predict disastrous events but it is up to all of us to keep our departments, companies and individuals safe. As one firefighter said, firefighters have to return to the firehouse the same way they responded.
Los Angeles County firefighters (pictured above), no strangers to earthquakes, mudslides and wildland fires, were recently in a fight for their financial lives. A proposed $51.7 in funding could have been lost, forcing the closing of 20 fire stations and 34 engine companies, and cutting daily staffing by 150 firefighters. County firefighters had warned that "if the proposition loses, we all lose residents, businesses and the firefighters." But voters passed the measure with about 77% of the vote when 66.7% was needed. In this case the fire service, with the help of the voters, won a battle.
Fires and politics, it's a never-ending battle.
