[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 14 (Tuesday, February 15, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E143]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        TRIBUTE TO CHIEF MULLER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BART STUPAK

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 15, 2000

  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note for our House 
colleagues the loss of a fine community leader and dedicated public 
servant, Fred Muller of Acme, Mich., who died at his home on Dec. 21, 
1999.
  At the time of his death, Fred was chief of the Grand Traverse Rural 
Fire Department. He was also an arson investigator whose probes and 
seminars took him all over the nation, and he was an instructor at the 
National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md. Most important to me, Fred 
Muller was my friend.
  I am challenged, Mr. Speaker, to sum up this man's life in a few 
brief remarks. My anecdotes are only small windows on the career of a 
man who so loved firefighting from his youth that at age 13 he formed a 
junior volunteer fire brigade in his hometown of Brighton, Michigan. We 
can only glimpse the strength of his dedication to his community in 
such acts as coming out of retirement in 1985 after 24 years with 
General Motors to assume the post of rural fire chief in one of the 
most heavily populated counties in my district.
  Our view of Fred Muller comes into better focus when we learn that he 
served eight years as a city council member and two years as mayor pro 
tempore of Brighton, and held various leadership positions, including 
president, of such professional organizations as the Northern Michigan 
Fire Chiefs, Michigan Fire Chiefs and International Association of Fire 
Chiefs.
  Fred was a leader, and as his deputy chief Bill Sedlacek was quick to 
note in a news story on Fred's death, he led his volunteer force to a 
position of being rated among the top five in the nation.
  In his public role, Fred's greatest test was a fire that broke out in 
late 1995 at a tire retreading facility in the small Michigan community 
of Grawn.
  When the black clouds began climbing from the site and soot began 
turning snow around the site black, Fred ordered homes evacuated and a 
local school closed.
  But the fire, which burrowed deep into a field of hundreds of 
thousands of tires, sometimes piled 50 feet high, soon signaled it 
would not be easily dealt with. There was no model for this 
conflagration. Temperatures at the core of the fire built up to almost 
2,500 degrees. The fire burned under the surface, creating cavities 
that constantly threatened to swallow firefighting equipment. 
Conventional hoses merely built a shell of ice around the fire, which 
burned uninterrupted.
  The fire became a siege, drawing manpower from around the state and 
bringing in technical experts from various state and federal agencies. 
Almost 125 firefighters were at work on New Year's Eve. Throughout the 
fire, Fred continued to monitor the hours that men worked, aware that 
fatigue and complacency were the greatest threats to the well-being of 
the army of firefighters. Whenever he gave community updates, Fred drew 
applause from audiences who knew he was dedicated to finding a way to 
defeat this fire through techniques that would serve as a guide for any 
future fire of this kind.
  I had known Fred through his efforts to win funding for fire 
training, but now I had an opportunity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder 
with him in this great fight. I was able to assist by obtaining for 
Fred a pair of Air National Guard water cannons from a nearby base. 
With these cannons, his crews were able to blast apart the hot core of 
the fire, eventually reducing the blaze to smaller, cooler fires that 
could be doused by conventional means.
  Mr. Speaker, we all owe a debt to this dedicated citizen, one of 
those men who care about people, give of themselves, and seem to live a 
life in preparation from some great moment when they can marshal and 
utilize all the skills they have acquired.
  Not only my northern Michigan communities but the entire nation 
sustained a great loss with Fred Muller's untimely death. He will be 
missed.

                          ____________________