Editor's note:  Check FireRescue1's special news report for the latest coverage of the S.C. tragedy.

By Russ Bynum
The Associated Press

PHOTO AP/Alice Keeney Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas, left, receives a hug Tuesday after a news conference about the fire.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Rusty Thomas doesn't try to stop his hands from shaking, or his tears from showing, when he tells how his son tried to console his grief the night after nine of his firefighters perished in a furniture store blaze.

The Charleston fire chief had come home from a day that began with his overseeing the removal of the bodies of men who died trapped inside a burning furniture store. His son Trey, a cadet and baseball player at The Citadel, was at home waiting for him.

"He said, 'God must have wanted a starting lineup for his baseball team, because he took all nine of them,'" Thomas said, crying as he was interviewed in his office atop the 1887 red-brick firehouse in downtown Charleston.

Firefighting and baseball are driving passions for Thomas, 49. But he made battling fires his priority at age 18, when he turned down a college baseball scholarship to sign up with the Charleston Fire Department four days after graduating from high school.

As Charleston firefighters deal with their first deaths in the line of duty since 1965, and the nation's worst firefighter fatalities since the Sept. 11 attacks, it's no wonder Thomas sees the 243 men and women in his department more as family than employees.

His younger brother, Tommy Thomas, is one of his battalion chiefs. Their father, Russell B. Thomas Sr., worked 40 years at the department before retiring in 1995. Thomas says a succession of family members have served at the fire department continuously since 1914.

As for all the firefighters who aren't kin by blood, Thomas' brother says, "We're on duty for 24 hours, so it's a family for 24 hours."

When the furniture store caught fire Monday, Thomas was driving home with his wife, Carol. He dashed to the scene — taking her with him. She sat in the car until a police officer offered her a ride.

Before he became chief in 1992, Thomas worked his way through the ranks with three of the men who died in the store fire Monday — Capt. Billy Hutchinson, Capt. Mike Benke and firefighter James "Earl" Drayton. The other six were all men he hired.

Those under his command simply call him "Chief Rusty."

"I lost nine of my best friends," Thomas told reporters Tuesday. He wasn't exaggerating. He later spoke at length about all of them — their family lives, nicknames, hobbies and personality quirks.

Thomas says he doesn't care for the political side of the job. Before taking a condolence call Wednesday from Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, he asked, "That's the guy running for president?"

He prefers action to the office, motioning to a reporter to be quiet while he listens to a muffled radio dispatch through the closed door. "If there's a fire while me and you are talking, I'm gone."