By Rick Jervis
USA Today
AUSTIN, Texas — Recent processions and eulogies memorialized the 10 firefighters killed last month in a West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion, but making their names a permanent part of Texas history may prove difficult.
A 50-foot-tall memorial to Texas volunteer firefighters killed in the line of duty located on the Texas Capitol grounds in Austin has run out of room to add more names. The bronze statue of a fireman with a baby cradled in one hand, a lantern in the other, is one of the oldest monuments in Austin and one of most prestigious recognitions of fallen volunteer firefighters, said Chris Barron, executive director of the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas. The last name was added in 2011: Thomas Araguz III, a captain with the Wharton Volunteer Fire Department who was killed the previous year fighting a fire at an egg farm in Boling, Texas, near Houston.
The association, which owns the statue, needs to raise more than $100,000 to build an expansion to the memorial, Barron said. The West explosion — one of the deadliest incidents involving firefighters in Texas history — has injected a renewed sense of urgency to the project, he said.
Full story: No room for fallen Texas firefighters on monument