At a moving memorial service attended by thousands of firefighters from around the country and several foreign countries, President Clinton paid tribute yesterday to the six firemen who perished battling the inferno-like blaze that broke out at an abandoned warehouse in Worcester, Mass., last Friday. Fittingly, the President also took the occasion to pay homage to the nation's entire family of firefighters -- the men and women whose willingness to risk injury and death in order to protect others, Mr. Clinton noted, is too often taken for granted.
Indeed, the Worcester blaze, and the courage shown by the firefighters who battled it with lethal results amid unbearable heat and blinding smoke, was a reminder of the risks routinely faced by firefighters everywhere when they answer an alarm. So far this year 100 firefighters have been killed in the line of duty in this country, a death toll roughly comparable to that suffered by crime-fighting police during the same period. In New York City alone, 13 firefighters have lost their lives since 1995, according to Fire Department records. Many more have been injured.
At the ceremony, President Clinton quoted from Benjamin Franklin's salute to firefighters contained in an essay, ''Brave Men at Fires.'' ''Neither cold nor darkness will deter good people from hastening to the dreadful place to quench the flame,'' Franklin wrote. All these years later, battling flames remains what it has always been -- an honorable, necessary and extremely dangerous job.Continue reading the main story