Peers Turn Out in Force for Late Fireman

Bagpipes wailed and feet scuffed pavement, but otherwise all was eerily silent Saturday as some 1,800 firefighters marched along Santa Ana’s Tustin Avenue to pay homage to a fallen comrade.

Firefighters traveled from as far as Oregon and Oklahoma to take part in services for Orange County Fire Capt. Thomas O. Wall, 44, who died Monday after suffering a heart attack protecting a home in the Taylor wildfire in Riverside County.

It was a grand if somber procession. A horse-drawn antique fire engine. Wall’s own assigned engine from Station 21 carrying him, this time in a flag-draped coffin. Then an army of firefighters, mostly in dress blues, flanked by 150 firetrucks from across Southern California. Finally, the flyover of five firefighting helicopters before the service inside Calvary Church.

For some firefighters, the procession and ceremony were a replay of the funeral last month for firefighter Allen Donelan, 34, who died of undiagnosed heart disease while recuperating from back surgery at an Orange hospital. Wall and Donelan formed half of a four-man crew at Station 21 in Tustin, and Wall helped organize Donelan’s funeral, complete with a procession of fire engines and a flyover by firefighting helicopters.

Wall was “a pillar of support” for the department in those days after Donelan’s death, Fire Chief Charles “Chip” Prather recalled just after Wall died. “Tom was still mourning, still grieving over the loss of his friend, and yet he pushed on for the sake of everyone else,” he said. “He died courageously and unselfishly. He was a hero and he deserves to be remembered that way.”

On Saturday, he was.