What happened on South Fifth Street in Emmaus on Sunday March 17 was a tragedy. Four Emmaus residents lost their lives in a horrific apartment building fire.

The tragedy has numerous tentacles.

Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, workmates, classmates, church family, friends and relatives mourn their loved ones.

Many have heartache that time will help diminish but will never ever heal.

A community mourns the tragedy happened in their small close-knit town.

Many in the community are rallying with donations to help with funeral expenses not anticipated, and will be a burden to the families left to honor their departed loved ones with appropriate services and interment.

There is a predictable course of feelings of loss, mourning and recovery.

Hopefully, friends and family will continue their caring and support beyond the funerals and memorials. Understanding, sympathy and a shoulder to cry on will be needed while time, faith and friendship help to dull the pain of loss.

There are others, though, whose ties to the fire victims lasted only minutes, or hours.

The drivers, officers and firefighters of the first responding fire and rescue vehicles arriving to see flames fully involving second and third floor windows; the rescue teams attempting to enter the building, only to be driven back by intense heat and flames, and obeying radio calls and air horns blasting from every truck and engine telling the rescuers to pull back; then the recovery teams who would not leave the scene until all the victims were located and taken from the charred ruins of the two upper floor apartments.

All of the first responders took home images in their minds' eye that will stay with them for a long time - perhaps for a lifetime.

One recovery officer described the images as the worst he had ever encountered. A fire command officer, still on the scene mid-week, acknowledged he had not really gotten much sleep in the previous three days. "I go to bed, but I keep my eyes open because when I close them, the flashbacks are there."

These first-responder firefighters do not do this for a living. These are not career professional firefighters. But, they are well-trained volunteers with a sense of mission to serve the residents of their community. At the end of a day on the fire ground, their only pay is when they have managed to save somebody's property, or saved someone's life.

On March 17, those efforts were thwarted, and all they went home with was heavy hearts and images they could not easily shake from their heads.

As we remember the victims, and keep their families in thoughts and prayer, let's also do the same for the volunteers who are always there for us.

And while we do that, there were police officers, detectives, fire marshal investigators and emergency medical personnel doing their professional duty.

But, just because they get a paycheck for doing their professional duty, they are no less emotional. They can be hurting, too. Don't forget anyone that was there to help. They deserve no less.

Jim Marsh

Freelance

writer/photographer