New York City’s Bravest are hoping to spark a flood of support nationwide for the families of firefighters killed earlier this year battling the massive wildfire in Arizona.
Dozens of FDNY fire companies have chipped in to raise almost $30,000 since 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots crew were killed fighting the raging wildland blaze on June 30.
Now they’re challenging other fire companies across the country to match their donation and help those families of victims not eligible to receive full survivor benefits.
Phil Pillet, a 24-year veteran FDNY firefighter with Ladder Co. 56 in the Bronx, helped organize the fund-raiser to show support for wildland firefighters who arrived in the city after Sept. 11.
“It goes all the way back to them coming here on 9/11 without being called, and just showing up,” said Pillet, 51, adding that the woodland smoke-eaters introduced a more sophisticated level of organization to handle mass casualty incidents.
Pillet said he and several others have since formed the FDNY’s incident management team, which was a direct result of working regularly with elite crews of firefighters battling wildland blazes on the west coast.
“They mentored us,” Pillet said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have gotten our team up and running.”
Pillet used the skills to spearhead several relief projects, such as “Operation Breezy Gut and Pump,” which focused on rebuilding Breezy Point after it was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy.
When he heard the hotshots crew in Arizona had perished, he knew he had to do something. He immediately spoke with fellow firefighter Mickey Walker about ways they could help.
The two men soon came up with the idea to ask every firefighter to donate $1 per meal during their shifts — and just over a month later, they collected nearly $30,000.
They then approached other fire departments to pitch in after news broke that just six families of the 19 doomed hotshots were qualified to receive millions of dollars in benefits. The other 13 were not eligible because they were not full-time employees.
Roxanne Warneke — the pregnant widow of one of the fallen Arizona hotshots, 25-year-old Billy Warneke — asked the state’s governor, Jan Brewer, to intervene on behalf of the families that will only receive about $433,000 in benefits and charitable donations.
“Because our husbands were hired as seasonal firefighters, my family and 12 other families will not receive the same pension benefits or the same health insurance benefits as the survivors of the city’s permanent employees,” Warneke said in an open letter to Brewer dated Aug. 14.
“They all deserve equal treatment, because they all made the same ultimate sacrifice,” she told reporters the same day.
Pillet and Walker have challenged firefighters from Massachusetts to Illinois to match their donation and contribute the money to any legitimate fund for the families.
A source confirmed that members of the Chicago Fire Department have accepted the proposition, but are currently discussing ways to raise the cash.
The money raised by the FDNY will go to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, a nonprofit designed specifically to help all firefighters killed while battling wildfires.
“It shows that this town, New York City, cares,” said the group’s director, Burk Minor. “They care about their fellow brothers.”
Minor said 31 people have died while fighting wildfires since the beginning of the year, and most of their families will get little or nothing.
“They’re risking life and limb,” Minor said of the firefighters. “And there’s nothing to take care of them at the end.”
