[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 19016]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       FIREFIGHTERS MEMORIAL DAY

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, today I would like to take a moment 
and recognize all those brave firefighters who died in the line of duty 
last year.
  This past Sunday--October 7--was National Fallen Firefighters 
Memorial Day. The President and Mrs. Bush joined with thousands of 
family members and friends at the National Fallen Firefighters 
Memorial, located in Emmitsburg, MD, to honor those who have given the 
ultimate sacrifice. In 2000, 99 brave men and women in 38 States and 
Puerto Rico lost their lives trying to save the lives of others. I am 
saddened to say Mr. Robert W. Crump from the Denver Fire Department was 
one of the many honored this past weekend.
  In 1999, over 1.8 million fires were attended to by a public fire 
department. That means fire departments across the country responded to 
a fire once every 17 seconds. In that same year, fire resulted in over 
$10 billion of property damage, almost 22,000 civilian injuries, and 
almost 3,000 civilian deaths.
  We currently have over a million firefighters in the United States. 
While there are thousands of career firefighters that serve us each day 
in cities across the country, there are over 785,000 volunteer 
firefighters. In fact, most communities with less than 25,000 people 
are served by these volunteer units.
  As we saw on September 11th, firefighters are among the first on the 
scene. It is without a doubt that there would have been hundreds if not 
thousands of more victims without the help of those brave public 
servants. It is our job to make sure that these our firefighters have 
the right tools and training so that they may continue to work saving 
thousands of people each year.
  We must also remember that these acts of bravery not only occur in 
our cities but also in our national forests. As a citizen of the 
American West, I have seen the devastating effect forest fires have on 
our country. An average of over 100,000 fires burn nearly 4 million 
acres each year. Federal forest firefighters based throughout the 
country work with local departments to protect the national forest 
system.
  Since 1981 the names of 2,181 firefighters have been added to the 
plaques that surround the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial. As a 
Co-Chairman of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, I will continue 
to work to insure that these firefighters will not be forgotten.

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