Media Advisory
Annual Halifax Explosion & Line of Duty Death Ceremony
Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014 (Halifax, NS) – The Fallen Firefighters Monument Committee along with the Halifax Professional Fire Fighters and Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency invite citizens to join them Saturday morning in recognizing the largest one-day loss of Halifax firefighter lives.
Nine Halifax firefighters died on Dec. 6, 1917 while responding to the devastating Halifax Explosion. On that cool clear morning the munitions ship S.S. Mont Blanc, already on fire from a collision in Halifax Harbour, glanced off Pier 6 in northend Halifax, sparking a fire in the dockyard.
For all but one of those West Street firefighters, it would be their last alarm.
Halifax firefighters have honoured their fallen brethren at a monument marking the Halifax Explosion and the loss of firefighter lives every year since 1992. The ceremony has since been expanded to also recognize other firefighter line-of-duty deaths, as well as the passing of retired firefighters who have died in the previous year.
This year for the first time, a new recruit who graduated just last Friday will join a 95-year-old retired firefighter in laying a wreath at the foot of the monument as a symbolic gesture of one generation of firefighter passing the torch to another generation of firefighter.
Also laying wreaths at the monument will be representatives from Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency, the union, the municipality, and the province.
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Media Contacts:
Chris Camp
Halifax Professional Fire Fighters
902-471-2421
Phil McNulty
Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency
902-490-5666
