REMEMBRANCE
Ceremony honors pair of lives lost at Ebenezer Baptist Church fire in 2004
Lt. Billy Jenkins and fire inspector Lisa Epps lay wreaths Saturday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in memory of two firefighters on the 15th anniversary of their deaths. Story on
Steps from the entrance to Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District, a nook holds memories of the worst day in church history.
Two well-worn pairs of fire boots, two air tanks, two fire axes and two helmets — one reading “Battalion Chief” — donated by the families of the two firefighters who died battling a fire there 15 years ago.
Saturday morning, city firefighters added two wreaths to the display, in front of two wooden beams draped in black cloth. About a dozen firefighters solemnly lined the church hallway, hats in their hands.
“St. Patrick’s Day means different things to different people,” said Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones. “It’s the day we celebrate all of us having a little bit of Irish heritage, but it’s also a time for us to remember the sacrifice of these brave men.”
Chief Jones spoke at about 8:45 a.m. — the same time that the first 911 call was made on March 13, 2004, also the morning of the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Deborah Parker, the church administrator, was Downtown at the time and could see the smoke. Wondering if it was coming from the church, she headed toward the Hill District.
Coming up Crawford Avenue, she knew. “You couldn’t see the church. You could only see smoke,” she said. “There was nothing to do. Nothing to say.”
Firefighters entered the church and began to fight the fire. About 45 minutes in, the fire momentarily seemed to extinguish and then exploded with a massive backdraft so powerful that it blew one firefighter out of the building and
across the street. Five firefighters were hospitalized from injuries from the backdraft, but within two hours, the fire seemed mostly contained.
Then, at 12:13 p.m., as firefighters were spraying hot spots hoping to save the building from becoming a total loss, the 118-foot-tall bell tower crashed to the ground. Killed by the collapse were Battalion Chief Charles Brace and Master Firefighter Richard Stefanakis, and more than 20 more firefighters were injured.
“These guys are heroes,” said Ms. Parker, the church administrator. “Our hearts were broken that day.”
The Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire hasn’t lost a firefighter while fighting a fire since that day, said Chief Jones, and hopes to keep it that way.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was founded in 1875, was rebuilt and reopened in 2006, complete with the memorial to the firefighters right near the entrance.
“Even when the kids come by here they stop, they never run by, they never bother anything,” she said. “When the new church was built, we just wanted to make absolutely sure that these men were honored.”
The church is growing and thriving, said Ms. Parker, pointing to a poster showing that a funding drive for a $100,000 mortgage fund already is at two-thirds of its goal. From the second floor of the church she looks out huge windows at streets on the hilly expanse below, remembering the day 15 years ago when those streets were all packed with fire trucks.
After the wreaths were lain, City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, who grew up in the Hill District and said that the church “in many respects is like home to me,” read a proclamation issued by the city naming March 13, 2019, as Ebenezer Fire Rememberance Day.
“We just say thank you for what they were willing to sacrifice,” he said, “which was ultimately their lives.”