Comments Off on

[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]

Firefighters are heroes.

They always insist they’re not heroes. They say they’re just doing their jobs – nothing heroic about it. And they do those jobs so professionally, making extremely dangerous feats look so routine, that it’s easy to almost believe them.

But then something like the tragedy in Arizona happens, and we’re reminded of exactly what they risk to protect us all from the unpredictable whims of fire.

We in Colorado have had plenty of reminders recently of the heroism of firefighters. Driving through Black Forest on Saturday, you see it in every house that was spared the fate of the destroyed one next door, in every block that was unscathed while the one across the street burned –  because firefighters stood in the road and held their ground.

You see their heroism, too, in the photos and videos of firefighters braving heat and smoke and wind and flame to protect lives and homes.

And you see it in countless news accounts, like the story about the firefighters who formed a line in front of the School in the Woods, faced down a wall of shadow & flame, and made sure that it “shall not pass” – saving the school.

I suspect we’ll learn eventually that certain mistakes were made which, in hindsight, contributed to the tragedy in Yarnell, AZ. Firefighters will try to learn from those mistakes, whatever they were, for the future. And that’s as it should be. But perfection is impossible to achieve in this life. Mistakes happen, and when they do, fire is unforgiving. The fact is, every time these brave men and women go to the front lines to battle one of these dangerous, unpredictable, raging wildfires, they take a risk that what happened in Yarnell will happen to them. They take this risk willingly, with full knowledge of what could happen, because to them, protecting others is worth the risk. Because they are heroes.

God bless them.