Family members consoled one another and firefighters stood at attention as the time of the fatal Shiller’s fire dispatch 25 years earlier drew close.    photo by Randy Leonard

 Firefighters, family honor 3 who died

by Randy Leonard

On a clear, warm afternoon, dozens of firefighters lined up outside Dundalk Station 6 last Thursday to honor three men who died after being called to a fire 25 years ago to the hour.
    Walter Bawroski Sr., James Kimbel, and Henry Rayner Jr. were honored by about 80 Baltimore County Fire Department members in a ceremony.
    The three died in the five-alarm conflagration that consumed Shiller’s Furniture and Appliance Store on Holabird Avenue on Oct. 22, 1984.
    “There are many here today who were there 25 years ago,” said Fire Chief John Hohman, who was a firefighter stationed in Halethorpe at the time of the tragedy. “We remember the shock and grief of losing our friends and colleagues.”
    The three men had been on Engine 6, one of the first to the scene of the smoke-filled building in response to a 1:33 p.m. dispatch. With fire crews inside, the fire progressed dramatically, knocking one firefighter down a flight of stairs and releasing 200-foot-high flames and heat that damaged a building across the street.
    “I was a teenager 25 years ago,” County Councilman Kevin Kamenetz (2nd District) said. “We honor those who sacrificed their lives protecting the public.”    
    Retired Capt. Thomas Pinder, the lieutenant in charge of Engine 61 out of Station 6 that fateful day, offered a prayer.
    Then a piper and drummers played “Amazing Grace,” and relatives followed two fire service men carrying a Maltese Cross wreath made of both red and white daisies. The families took a moment of silence, comforting one another after the wreath was laid. As the 1:33 p.m. time of the call drew close, fire department spokeswoman Elise Armacost closed the ceremony.
    Afterward, firefighters recalled playing softball with Rayner and how the community came together after the loss of the three.
    “We don’t need to remember – we’ve never forgotten,” said fire specialist Ronald Schreiber, who works at Eastview Station 15 as he did 25 years ago.
    “The outpouring of support for us was unbelievable,” said Schreiber, a longtime resident of Anne Arundel County who said he has stayed in Dundalk, in part because of the community’s response after the Shiller’s fire. 
    “It doesn’t seem like 25 years” have passed, retired Lt. Leo Geho said.