By Richard Nangle
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Copyright 2007 Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Flights into the city from New England were hard to come by, expensive and decidedly inconvenient in the hours after the city announced its plans for a Friday memorial service for nine firefighters killed in a furniture store blaze.

So the majority of the 15 Worcester firefighters who made the trip jumped into their cars and braved a 16-hour ride. Some of them got here just in time.

"We got here at 6:30 (Friday) morning and had 45 minutes to take a shower," said Capt. Michael Lavoie. "Imagine six guys taking a shower in 45 minutes." They had stopped at the nearby home of a friend of one of the firefighters.

Capt. Lavoie said he would have preferred to fly, but the fares were too expensive. "So we decided to drive. We had six guys taking turns and we did all right."

They were joined by David Gallagher, a retired Ohio firefighter who lives in Holden and conducts training sessions with the Illinois Fire Service Institute of the University of Illinois.

"I have a very fond relationship with members of the Worcester Fire Department," Mr. Gallagher said. "Some people think it's an overused phrase, but it's a brotherhood we have."

Mr. Gallagher was one of the lucky ones. He was on a direct flight from Boston to Charleston.

Fire Capt. Kevin Maloney, one of the first on the scene at the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. building fire in 1999, said he shared the feelings of the others who made the trip - that attendance was pretty much mandatory. Many of his colleagues wanted to come, he said, but the short time span between the announcement of the memorial and the service itself proved a deterrent.

"We would have had a lot more guys here if we'd had a couple of days to organize things," he said, adding that while he was lucky enough to get a flight to Myrtle Beach, he would have driven the entire distance if left with no other option.

But they wouldn't have had it any other way. Capt. Lavoie, who joined the department at the same time as Fire Lt. James F. Lyons III, one of the six killed in the 1999 fire, said he saw a news report of the Charleston fire on television and knew immediately what he had to do.

"It just gives you goose bumps - the emotions just come rushing back. Our thing, it seemed like it happened yesterday. Anytime something like this happens, it just brings it back to the surface. It's just something we feel like we have to do."