NEW YORK — A Long Island man, whose heroic firefighter father lost his life in a devastating Bronx Black Sunday fire two decades ago, joined the ranks of the FDNY alongside hundreds of other graduates.
Dennis Meyran drew inspiration from his late father, Lt. Curtis Meyran, who leaped to his death in January 2005 to escape an apartment fire after selflessly giving up his hose to help his colleagues, the New York Post reported.
Meyran said the memory of his father and the goal of making him proud motivated him through the toughest moments of the FDNY’s 18-week-long training academy.
“I just wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and wanted to be a fireman since I could remember,” Meyran said. “I have memories of him going to the firehouse as a kid and meeting all the guys, and seeing how much everybody liked him. Those are the things I carry with me every day.”
Meyran was a teenager on Jan. 23, 2005, when his father responded to a fire on 178th Street in the Bronx’s Morris Heights neighborhood.
With flames trapping firefighters, Meyran and Firefighter John Bellew made the desperate choice to jump 50 feet from the fourth floor, a fall that claimed their lives.
The day became known as “Black Sunday” after another firefighter, Richard Sclafani, also died in a separate Brooklyn fire.
