Editor’s note: While we’d all like to be helping with efforts in Oklahoma, Chief Adam K. Thiel urges us to resist the temptation to self-dispatch and look for other meaningful ways to help our firefighting brothers and sisters.
It’s been a tragic week for the fire and emergency services community, along with our law enforcement and EMS partners, across the United States.
From firefighter fatalities in Phoenix and Dallas, to the devastating tornado strikes in Oklahoma, fire departments and their families have been hit hard over the past several days. This, of course, with thoughts of our fallen brothers in West, Texas and the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing still fresh in our minds.
As usual, however, the world sees firefighters once again putting their own difficulties aside to help others, both inside and outside our service.
But who takes care of us during the aftermath?
We know that the reporters and television trucks will move along (soon) to the next salacious trial, celebrity foible, or major scandal. Along with them will go much, but certainly not all, of the public attention and support.
So who’s left?
Well, we know from experience that firefighters the world over “take care of our own.”
From the ongoing work of our national and international organizations, to ad hoc state and local efforts, there are so many folks — active and retired, career and volunteer — working together to help their fellow firefighters recover from these tragedies.
While we can’t all go to the scene to lend a hand (we all want to, but know better than to self-dispatch), the people affected by these incidents will need help for many days, weeks, months, and even years to come.
So find a way to help, and remember that they’ll be there for you, and your family, when you need them most.
Stay safe.
