"The first response to a local catastrophe doesn't come out of the military.  The first response is out there in our community."  Former U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon

        The history of the volunteer fire service in our four-county corner of the Commonwealth needs to be preserved and shared.  Our communities are changing.  There are folks moving into our towns and townships who never heard the wail of a fire siren from a rooftop bugle or saw a volunteer spring from the dinner table or jump out of bed in the middle of the night.

        Some never saw the need to drop a dollar at the fire company fund drive because fire protection was always included in their taxes.  Many folks new to the area feel that they're being pummeled with pleas for money and volunteers.  Some grow weary of hearing volunteer firefighters and emergency personnel lament about how hard and dangerous their choice of community service is.

        It is the community service they choose.  There is a certain peril that goes with it and everybody goes in with both eyes open.  The volunteers are at high risk from events that include issues that range from personal lawsuits to their own injury or death. 

        But we wanted to share one more aspect of the emergency service.  Something that pulls at the heartstrings of the volunteers every time it happens; getting up in the middle of the night to respond to an emergency call and being that last person to try and help somebody's loved one.  No family, no friends, just you.

        You may think it's an isolated case but there are many longtime volunteers who answered the calls for help, and were greeted with death more than 100 times in our local area.  That's way too many, and these folks have to live with that the rest of their lives and accept the life and death credo that they did everything they could, or there was nothing they could do.

        The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania still has the largest number of volunteer firefighters in the United States, but those numbers are declining.  These volunteers are slaves to a cry for help.  You might call them a modern day Crimson Militia, able to drop what they're doing and be ready for service at their post aboard their red, diesel-powered chariots within four minutes of the sound of the alarm.

        October 11 and 12 has been designated as the 33rd Annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend. 

        Public Law 107.51 requires the American Flag to be lowered to half-staff on all federal buildings to memorialize fallen firefighters in conjunction with the observance of the National Fallen Firefighters Service on Sunday, Oct. 12.

        More than 100 firefighters died in the line of duty in 2013.  Forty-two of them were volunteers.

On October 16, 2001, President George W. Bush approved legislation requiring the American flag to be lowered to half-staff on all Federal buildings to memorialize fallen firefighters. Public Law 107-51 requires this action to occur annually in conjunction with observance of the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service.

        Over the past 80 years five area, volunteer firefighters died in the line of duty.  Their names are etched in the Montgomery County Firemen's Memorial in Conshohocken.

        Remember them and all of the volunteers who stand ready to drop whatever they're doing when the alarm sounds.