by Brian Kadle
This year was the 23rd year that we’ve gathered as a Union to honor our fallen brothers and sisters at the IAFF FALLEN FIRE FIGHTERS MEMORIAL located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This year’s observance occurred just over a month ago and generally occurs the 3rd weekend of September each year.
The memorial came to life when the Colorado Springs IAFF Local 5 presented to the City Fathers a proposal for a memorial that would honor our fallen. In 1984 those City Fathers granted a lease in Memorial Park for the purpose of erecting a permanent tribute to fire fighters. The price of the lease was just one dollar per year.
The center piece of the memorial arrived in 1987 but the first two granite walls were not installed until 1989. Since then we have etched the names of Professional Union fire fighters on the wall each year ever since. Although thousands have died throughout our Union’s history, names etched on this wall date back only through 1976, when the United States Federal Government first began tracking line-of-duty deaths in the fire service.
This year was particularly important for the IAFF Fallen Fire Fighters Memorial and Local 244. This is the first time in the history of the memorial that we have had a brother’s name etched on the wall; and hopefully the last.
This year’s observance included honoring our fallen brother Atilano A. Fernandez who passed away on September 2, 1982.
Atilano was known a “Ferny” by his friends in the fire department. He joined the department September 16, 1963 and was assigned to various stations throughout the 19 years of his career. He loved instructing the school children who made their annual field trip to the fire station during “Fire Prevention Week”.
Atilano was working on Engine 17 at the time. They responded to car fire and during that scene he put the hose line down, turned to the Captain, as he was suffering from an apparent Heart Attack and died there after.
Atilano is survived by his wife Shirley, his daughter Antoinetta, and his grandchildren Rebecca and Adrian. We are hoping to present the family with the flag we received at the memorial at our Fire Fighters Ball on December 5th.
Overall attendance to the memorial from our local has been growing over the years. It was great to see so many out particularly this year since we were honoring one of our own. Sister Emily Kane rode up to the memorial on her motorcycle and participated in the ground shaking procession that opened the memorial. Brother Rainier Perez and his family returned again this year. He took an active part in the ceremony by participating as a “Flag Presenter” and he carried/presented Atilano’s flag. Brother Jim Summers and family were in attendance and Jim received the flag presented by Rainy as the rest of us stood with him. The rest of our group included Brothers Keith Milliron, Mark McConnell, Julian Trujillo, Travis Conlin, Kurt Silva, Jeremy Bird and I.
In addition to the roar of the procession and the tremendous ceremony is the celebration that occurs in Downtown Colorado Springs on Friday night and Saturday night. The City of Colorado Springs goes out of their way for us and blocks of a section of downtown and the Honor Guard Pipes and Drums performs each night in the street to honor our fallen. After the street performance the group breaks into smaller groups and fans out to the various establishments nearby to continue the celebration. This is an amazing opportunity to meet and mingle with brothers and sisters from across the United States and Canada. It’s an amazing event.
The 2010 observance of the IAFF FALLEN FIRE FIGHTER MEMORIAL will actually be held on September 11, 2010. Those brothers and sisters who will have passed from June 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010 will join the names of the 2,274 fallen IAFF members who have already been engraved into the wall of honor.
Hopefully someday we will be able to attend and not have to put another name on the wall.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS IN THE PHOTO GALLERY SECTION - 2009 IAFF FALLEN FIREFIGHTER MEMORIAL
