On Oct. 5, Mayor Durkan, City Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw and Teresa Mosqueda joined with Seattle Fire Department personnel and family to pay tribute to the City’s firefighters who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
They gathered at Seattle’s Fallen Firefighter Memorial, located in Occidental Park. The memorial depicts four firefighters battling an imaginary blaze and is flanked by panels of stone, crisscrossed and laying down to represent collapsed walls.
The solemn ceremony began with the Fire Department’s Pipes & Drums corps playing and the Honor Guard presenting the colors. Chaplain Abigail Hodge offered the invocation, after which Fire Chief Harold Scoggins spoke about the annual commemoration and significance of certain aspects of the event.
City leaders also gave remarks, sharing personal reflections and connections to the fire fighting community. IAFF Local 27 President Kenny Stuart and IAFF Local 2898 President Tom Walsh spoke of the heroism and courage demonstrated by firefighters and their families. Assistant Chief A.D. Vickery then read the list of all Seattle’s fallen before bells tolled and the ceremony ended.
One of the memorial’s stone panels is inscribed with the names of 49 Seattle firefighters who died while responding or as the result of an illness associated with fire fighting. This list continues to grow as firefighters pass away and their deaths are determined to be in the line of duty.
Sadly, the list of names on the memorial grew with the addition of Captain Craig Aman. He died in March 2017 from a cancer linked to his career as a Seattle firefighter. Next year, the memorial list will include at least one more name: Marvin Larry. He died earlier this year and will be remembered next fall along with any other Seattle line of duty deaths that may still occur in 2018.
Captain Aman joined the Department in December 1990, serving on Ladder 9 and Ladder 5 before becoming a paramedic in 1994. He promoted to Lieutenant in 2010, then to Captain in 2016. As Captain, he served as the Special Events Coordinator and AMR liaison.
Before the ceremony closed with the playing of Amazing Grace, Fire Chief Scoggins and IAFF President Stuart presented a flag and offered private words to Captain Aman’s widow.
About the Memorial
Seattle’s annual memorial service is held the same weekend as the National Fallen Firefighter Memorial events in Emmitsburg, Maryland, at the National Fire Academy. Seattle Fire personnel whose death is determined in 2018 as in the “line of duty” will be memorialized next fall nationally and in Seattle. We welcome public attendance at the memorials.
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- Capt. Craig Aman, fallen firefighter, whose name was added to Seattle’s memorial.
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- A side view of the memorial as firefighters line the park.
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- Mayor Durkan recalls her deep connection with family of a fallen Seattle firefighter.
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- Seattle Fire’s Honor Guard presenting the colors.
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- Seattle Fire’s Honor Guard.
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- The bell tolled in a sequence of five rings and a pause, four times.
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- Looking through the memorial figures.
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- Seattle Fire Chief Scoggins carries the union flag to Capt. Aman’s widow. The Department accepted the flag on her behalf at a ceremony in Colorado Springs in September. IAFF Local 27 President Stuart joins Scoggins.
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- Scoggins presents the flag.