Fire Buffs promote the general welfare of the fire and rescue service and protect its heritage and history. Famous Fire Buffs through the years include New York Fire Surgeon Harry Archer, Boston Pops Conductor Arthur Fiedler, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and - legend has it - President George Washington.


Monday, January 23, 2012

WRIGHT PATTERSON - 1961


Photos: U.S. Air Force

Wright-Patterson Firefighter Williams Collins


Photos: Miami Valley Firefighter/EMS Memorial Association
Wright-Patterson Station Chief Dale Kelcher

On Nov. 21, 1961, fire swept a sprawling office building at Wright Paterson Air Force Base, k
illing two base firefighters. 

Station Chief Dale Kelcher and Firefighter William Collins were last seen entering Building 262-A, headquarters of the Air Force Logistics Command, which took fire at just before midnight Thanksgiving Eve. A backdraft trapped them.

The blaze "reduced a three-story frame building covering nearly the area of a football field to a pile of smoldering charcoal,” according to a newspaper account. 

Firefighters resorted to ground and aerial master streams to battle the blaze and called for mutual aid from neighboring communities.

At a November 2018 memorial, Major Tyler Johnson, commander, 788th Civil Engineer Squadron, said: "They looked danger in the eye and they ran into the flames."

Four days after Kelcher and Collins died, another major fire gutted a building at the air base, between Dayton and Springfield. There were no serious injuries in that blaze.

Two other Wright-Patterson firefighters died in the line of duty.
 Frank A. Smith perished fighting a fire at a motor pool in 1932 and Harold “Sparky” Sparks suffered a heart attack in 2009, according to Air Force records.