By Aaron Nicodemus
The Telegram & Gazette
WORCESTER, Mass. — How can I help?
With those four words, a community rallied 10 years ago to support the families of six firefighters who died in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire. More than $6.3 million in donations was collected by a Telegram & Gazette foundation for the families.
The Worcester Fire Department was forever changed, having made dramatic improvements in both training and equipment in the ensuing decade, all to keep a quiet promise made: Never again.
From the ashes of the fire, other seeds have sprouted — from inspiration for new technology to find lost firefighters, to beds and blankets for the chronically homeless. Six sons of one of the firefighters who died have pledged their lives to public service while a fund was created to pay college bills.
Ann T. Lisi, executive director of the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, said Worcester came together after the fire like never before.
“I was so happy to see that our community would be so dignified in the face of all this,” she said. There was not, for example, a large backlash against the city’s homeless population even though the fire was started by two homeless people who had broken into the building, she said.
The Dec. 3 Fund, administered by the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, has a balance of $1.3 million and has distributed $387,000 worth of scholarships since it was created. The scholarships are given to sons and daughters of Worcester police officers and firefighters.
Denis Leary, the comedian and actor whose cousin, Firefighter Jeremiah M. Lucey, and childhood friend, Lt. Thomas E. Spencer, both died in the fire, launched the Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000 to help buy equipment for firefighters. Along with funds from Hopkinton-based EMC Corp., the foundation paid to build the Worcester Fire Department a new “burn building” and training facility that serves 60 Central Massachusetts communities. The foundation also purchased a vehicle that can repair firefighters’ breathing apparatus in the field and a new rescue boat.
“Jerry (Lucey) was very vocal about the lack of training facilities and the lack of equipment,” Mr. Leary said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he was shooting “Rescue Me,” his television series about firefighters. “The training center, and some of the other stuff, is a positive thing that came out of all this.”
To date, the foundation has raised $10 million to buy firefighting equipment and build training facilities in Worcester, New York City, Boston and New Orleans.
Mr. Leary said he plans to be in his native Worcester tomorrow for events commemorating the fire’s 10th anniversary. He was asked how the public’s perception of firefighters changed after the fire, and after the events of Sept. 11.
“When 9-11 happened, at least in the Northeast, people were very aware of what firefighters do and the sacrifices they make,” he said.
But because the Worcester fire hit so close to home, Mr. Leary said it is difficult to look at the good that’s happened.
“Personally, though, there’s always a missing link for me. We’re missing a brother, a father, an uncle, a cousin. We don’t get to see Jerry. That resonates for the families every day,” he said.
The Brotherton family in Auburn has sought to honor their father, Firefighter Paul A. Brotherton, who died in the fire, by continuing his example of public service. Two sons, 24-year-old Michael and 23-year- old Brian, are Worcester firefighters. Twenty-year-old Steven, a college student, is an on-call firefighter with the Auburn Fire Department. Timothy, 19, also in college, is considering a career as a police officer. Seventeen-year-old John has enlisted with the Marines, with his eye on a career as a state trooper. David, 16, wants to be a firefighter like his older brothers.
The fire also inspired a lasting collaboration between the Worcester Fire Department and Worcester Polytechnic Institute to pursue new firefighting technology. Over the years, more than $5 million in federal grants have flowed to WPI research projects on firefighting technology, all in collaboration with the Worcester Fire Department. For the past four years, WPI and Worcester firefighters have hosted a conference that draws experts from around the country.
One of the technologies that may soon help is a search and rescue system nicknamed “The Mantenna,” which can help find a firefighter anywhere in a building.
“The technology is proven,” said R. James Duckworth, an associate engineering professor at WPI. If the researchers are successful in obtaining a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant next spring to make the Mantenna waterproof and heat-resistant, he said, the system could be in the hands of the Worcester Fire Department by next fall.
The Dec. 3, 1999, fire also sparked a technological and philosophical shift within the Worcester Fire Department, said Worcester District Fire Chief John F. Sullivan.
“We’re light years ahead of where we were in our abilities to fight fires,” Chief Sullivan said. “We’ve come from the 18th century to the 21st century in a very, very short period of time.”
The old gave way to the new last year, when the city dedicated an $8 million new fire station at the site of the five-alarm fire. It opened in November 2008. In front stands a small monument to the fallen firefighters.
Plans for a large memorial to the firefighters — part of a larger project off Grove Street that includes a new Worcester Fire Headquarters, an emergency operations center and an athletic field — are still a work in progress.
“The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee continues to await word on when money will be forthcoming from a commitment of $3.8 million in a state transportation bond bill to finance construction,” Michael Carota, chairman of the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee, said in a statement. Should the state money fail to materialize, he said, the committee may revisit its approach, “with an eye toward either another fund-raising avenue or fulfillment of its original goal of memorializing the six fallen firefighters in the most appropriate manner possible with the money remaining.”
Other initiatives draw their inspiration from the tragedy.
Last year, the Lt. Tommy Spencer House opened at 62 Elm St., part of the Home Again initiative fighting chronic homelessness in the city. It differs from other homeless shelters by providing in-house or immediate access to counseling, health care and education programs such as job training and developing basic life skills.
Two road races, run annually to honor the firefighters who died, raise money for local causes and a scholarship fund at Doherty Memorial High School.
But for all the good that the fire has inspired, the sum total pales in comparison to the loss from that day, Mr. Leary said.
“If there was some technology that could take us all back and make it never happen, I’d do that,” he said. “I’d take Jerry back in a heartbeat over any of the good that’s come from this.”
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