Keep Them in Your Thoughts

I've been meaning to post briefly on this. I'm sure everyone has read or seen the story of the nine firefighters who lost their lives battling a fire in a furniture store in Charleston, South Carolina (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/20/charleston.fire.ap/index.html.) It is the greatest loss of life sustained by a fire department in a single incident since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Please keep these heroes, their families, other members of the Charleston, SC fire department, and their friends in your thoughts and prayers.

As an aside, as tragedy often does, these events highlight the need for change. All buildings, even older ones, should be forced to adapt to current fire codes. It is quite possible that the fire would not have spread quite so quickly and become such an intense inferno had the structure had a sprinkler system. I realize that such changes are costly, but I think most people would agree that nine lives is a far greater cost. As an EMT on a volunteer fire department and someone who has been in emergency services for six years, it saddens me that cost and convenience are given a higher priority than the safety of those who risk their lives for public safety.

Back to regular posting later.