FIREFIGHTERS GET RESPECT IN LIFE … BUT LITTLE IN DEATH
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Firefighters from across Muskoka have been getting a lot of praise for their efforts battling blazes in Bracebridge last week, including the multimillion-dollar fire at Timber Mills.
Public and political praise has been heaped high.
And deservedly so, as most of them are volunteers.
Alive, everyone loves firefighers; and never hestitate to call 911.
Yet, when they’re gone, it seems firefighters get little respect — especially when they’re dead.
Too often they’re forgotten men and women, unlike soldiers, police and others who also serve and die.
At least locally and at where many of the province’s best firefighters have learned and trained to do the jobs Canadians rely on them to do unfailingly.
On a recent sunny summer Saturday salute to the fallen, at the Ontario Fire College in Gravenhurst, attendance was down and it continues to trickle down like a fire hose running out of water.
It’s a chance to honour career and retired full-time and volunteer firefighters this year “who have answered the final call and won’t be returning to station.”
More than 30 across Ontario this past year.
Oh, sure, there were more than 80 or so on hand. But most were officials, organizers and musicians. Only a couple dozen family members bothered to show up.
And no local presence of any note from Muskoka fire halls.
There were a lot of empty chairs on a beautifully hot day; but nothing compared to going into a burning house.
No excuses there.
Yet it was all done with solemnity and due respect, including a reading of the names of fallen (from on the job and the consequences of fire duty), prayers by Padre Rev. Jim Sittler, the laying of large wreaths and remarks from Shelley Parks Storey, president of the Firefighters Association of Ontario (FFAO).
“An honour to speak today at our memorial at the OFC,” Park Storey said in a post on their Facebook page later that day, June 23.
“However, I must admit we are saddened by the lack of attendance. The people we remembered today deserved better. They gave selflessly to their communities, and ultimately some gave their lives due to it.
“I know our lives are busy. In fact I, too, today had to choose between this and another event that I would have loved to be at. But my duty lied here today.
“I am grateful for those who made the trip to be with us to remember those we have lost. May we never forget them.”
It wasn’t always this way. When three giant black granite slabs were erected at the fire college years ago, the province always sent a representative, often the solicitor general who is responsible for firefighting services.
Not any longer, after similar memorials sprung up down south, including in the provincial capital.
Dennis firefighter Dennis Thain, who organized the event for many years, reiterated the president’s comments.
“Very sad to see the numbers have fallen,” he commented on her Facebook post.
“Just to have a representative from each hall to accompany the family, to hear the names of the departed who served their community over the years, it is a short service but very touching and time we keep this going.”
The piper’s lament between the Last Post and Reveille may have been for the fallen, but it had an added poignancy on this day as it echoed out onto Lake Muskoka.
A clarion call for 2020.
— Mark Clairmont is the FFAO company bugler.
