February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The flags are being delivered to churches, the pipers and drummers mustered. The farewell will be to all three of the firefighters who perished in two fires on a snowy Sunday, suddenly darkened by uninvited death.
In the case of Pearl River’s John Bellew, a society member, the final salute will be about as personal as it gets.
You can’t get used to this kind of duty. And you never should.
Behind the ceremonies, the tributes and the prayers, the investigations necessary to clearly determine what went wrong in both fires are taking shape.
Why did three firefighters die? Why did four others come close to death?
In both fires, serious questions have been raised about tactics, equipment and happenstance.
In the case of the Bronx apartment house fire, there have been reports of a floor illegally subdivided into a warren of hallways and small rooms.
No matter what the layout, the building was a death trap, the only way out a window below which there was only air.
As we have done in the past we mourn the fallen, admire their bravery and grieve for their families.
Firefighting in every city, town and village across this land is an intrinsically hazardous way of life.
But it is just that, a way of life. And a job that means the saving of life.
So we say our goodbyes, certain in the belief that courage has no end, that the heroism of the fallen lives on forever.