Several hundred FDNY supervisors and firefighters joined some 10,000 smoke-eaters from around the country and Canada in Boston on Wednesday to honor two firefighters who perished last week in one of the worst blazes in the city’s history.
“We were honored and proud to join with the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, hundreds more from our department and thousands more from around the country in being here,” said Al Hagen, president of the FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
Hagen estimated 500 members of the FDNY had made the trip to Massachusetts to offer support to the friends and families of the Boston FD who were killed last Wednesday in a wind-stoked, nine-alarm fire on Beach Street in Boston’s Back Bay area.
“We came here on our own time and our own dime. Everyone was awed by the turnout,” said Hagen.
The fast-moving blaze claimed the life of Lt. Edward J. Walsh Jr., 43, a married father of three children under the age of 10, who was buried today.
A second firefighter who also perished, Michael R. Kennedy, 33, a Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq, will be buried tomorrow – and the FDNY will remain on hand to provide support.
Hagen termed attending the two Beantown funerals “an act of brother and sisterhood and respect toward the families.”
“The fire officers and firefighters of the FDNY [are] representing not only the FDNY, but all of the people of New York City in a show of our deep appreciation of the loss that the Boston Fire Department and the people of Boston suffered,” Hagen noted.
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