The California Firefighters Memorial is a

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or works of a ...

located on the grounds of the California state capitol in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It honors

firefighters A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...

from California or who served in California and who died in line of duty or of other duty-related illness or injury. A memorial ceremony is held each year to honor firefighters who died in the line of duty. This ceremony is usually in late September. It includes a limestone memorial wall and two bronze statues: "Fallen Brother" and "Holding the Line"; it was designed by the

Jerde Partnership Jonathan Adams Jerde, (January 22, 1940 – February 9, 2015) was an American architect based in Venice, Los Angeles, California, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, a design architecture and urban planning firm specializing in the des ...

. The memorial is in the Capitol Park between 13th and 14th Streets and is managed by the

California State Capitol Museum The California State Capitol Museum consists of a museum in and grounds around the California State Capitol in Sacramento, California, United States. The building has been the home of the California State Legislature since 1869. The State Capi ...

. A "California Firefighters Memorial Fund" was created which received proceeds from the California Motor Vehicles Department from sales of special vehicle license plates, under a program established by Section 18802 of the California Revenue and Taxation Code. It also received donations designated for the Fund received by the

California Franchise Tax Board The California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) administers and collects state personal income tax and corporate franchise and income tax of California. It is part of the California Government Operations Agency. The board is composed of the Californi ...

in state income tax filings, and from calendar sales. In 2015, sixteen firefighters' names were added to the Memorial.

Tragedy prompts safety

The memorial honors Cal Fire firefighters and numerous others from various other municipal and

wildland firefighting Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts in wild land areas require different techniques, equipment, and training from the more familiar structure fire fighting found in populated a ...

agencies, who have died from duty-related causes, some medical in nature, and others which occurred on-duty while directly engaged in an emergency incident. Typically these on-duty incident related deaths are analyzed and examined more closely than deaths from other medical reasons. Improvements in firefighting safety derived from case-studies of fatal firefighter incidents may be regarded as memorials, too. For example, flame resistant

nomex Nomex is a flame-resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967. Properties Nomex and related aramid polymers are related to nylon, but have aromatic backbones, and hence are more rigid and mo ...

clothing and upgraded training were required for Cal Fire employees after Steve Arrollado was burned in the Bell Valley fire. The wildland

fire shelter A fire shelter is a safety device of last resort used by wildland firefighters when trapped by wildfires. While such a shelter cannot withstand sustained contact with flames, it can protect a firefighter's life in a short-lived grass fire. Furtherm ...

was mandated for all Cal Fire firefighters after the Spanish Ranch fire in 1979, and it was redesigned and improved after the disastrous

South Canyon fire The South Canyon Fire was a 1994 wildfire that took the lives of 14 wildland firefighters on Storm King Mountain, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on July 6, 1994. It is often also referred to as the "Storm King" fire. It was the subject of J ...

near Glenwood Springs, CO. in 1994. The 1990 death of Kenneth Enslow prompted use of the "Look Up, Look Down" safety training program for Cal Fire employees. A variety of firefighting air tanker crashes eventually led to wider inspections and removing the oldest and most vulnerable large air tankers from the national wildland firefighting fleet.

Firefighter fatalities memorialized

Names included on th
California Firefighter Foundation's memorial wall
as part of the

, Sacramento, CA. can be foun
here
Notable among these is

James J. Kenney James J. Kenney (1869 – March 23, 1916) was the first fire chief in the city of Berkeley, California. He oversaw the mechanization of the department in 1914, the first in the United States west of Mississippi. Early life Kenney was born in 18 ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

Fallen Firefighters list

California Firefighters Memorial
Firefighting memorials Firefighting in the United States

Tragedy prompts safety

Firefighter fatalities memorialized

See also

References

External links