Project Roll Call

Acting Battalion Chief George A. Jacques and Firefighter Frederick W. Herrmann died of asphyxiation on October 28, 1938 after fighting a basement fire the night before.

On September 3, 1963, a tragic accident at the Shady Grove Sewer Lift Station in Bossier City claimed the lives of two firefighters and two water department workers due to toxic gas exposure.

On August 2, 1978, 6 FDNY firefighters died in a roof collapse as they were fighting a fire at the Waldbaum’s Supermarket in Brooklyn.

On July 9, 1953 fourteen New Tribes Mission firefighters and one U.S. Forest Service firefighter were killed while fighting the Rattlesnake Fire in the Mendocino National Forest.

Battalion Chief Eugene T. Freemon of the Chicago Fire Department died of smoke inhalation on June 5, 1946 after searching for victims in a fire at the LaSalle Hotel.

Firefighter Glen Thorpe, age 26, of the New London Fire Department died after being struck by a train on the way back from a call on May 4, 1966.

Firefighter Robert P. Coombs, age 34, of the Des Plaines Fire Department died while trying to rescue three trapped workers in a sanitary sewer on April 26, 1962.

Firefighter Herman N. Lewis, age 56, of the Indianapolis Fire Department died of a heart attack shortly after arriving to a 2-alarm fire on March 22, 1944.

Firefighter William E. Craighead, age 59, of the Lynchburg Fire Department died on February 21, 1940 from injuries he sustained after falling off the back of a responding engine.

Firefighter Jim Niven, age 44, died on January 2, 1978 after being pinned under apparatus that crashed on the way to a call.

Chicago firefighters John Jarose, Robert Jordan, George Malik, Robert Schaack, and Captain Nicholas Schmidt died in a building collapse during the Reliance Hotel on December 17, 1953.

Firefighters Van Buren “V.B.” Murphy and Thomas J. O’Brien died from crash injuries when they responded to a call on November 5, 1939.