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By BETH QUIMBY
MaineToday Media, Inc. Friday, June 22, 2007

MaineToday Media, Inc.

Scott Thomes stood in his Portland driveway drinking a coffee early Tuesday morning when two of his fellow Portland Fire Department firefighters pulled up.

They had bad news. A fire overnight had killed nine firefighters in the Charleston, S.C., fire department where Thomes' 27-year-old son, Scott, had started his new job the day before.

After a half hour of unanswered phone calls, Scott Thomes finally picked up. He told his father he was OK, but that he narrowly escaped the flames that quickly engulfed a furniture store, blowing out the windows and collapsing the roof and killing nine firefighters inside.

But he did not sound OK to dad. So he did the only thing he could think to do as a father -- he hopped in his wife's SUV with another firefighter and drove 1,100 miles to Charleston, arriving Wednesday.

"I needed to see him," Thomes (pronounced Toms) said in a telephone interview Thursday from Charleston, where he spent the day with his son and visited his son's station.

A former Portland High School football star, the younger Thomes was one of 16 firefighters who entered the building Monday night.

More than 35,000 firefighters from across the country are expected to gather in the city today for a memorial service for the nine who never made it out.

The older Thomes said he had to go to Charleston because his son would be mulling the "what if"s and his own escape from death.

There would be guilt and sadness and shock and he just had to be sure that his son was healing.

His son appeared on the CBS Early Show Tuesday morning with his chief, Rusty Thomas. In the only interview he has agreed to do, the young firefighter said he first thought his crew was just going to cover another station.

On Thursday, his father said his son was in his first shift on the first day of his new job, after moving to Charleston following a two-year stint on the nearby North Charleston Fire Department. His son was on the fifth engine to respond to the Sofa Super Store.

Thomes was back on the job Thursday with the roughly 90 other firefighters who responded to the scene.

The department is about the size of the Portland Fire Department, with 245 full-time firefighters. Based in 15 stations spread across Charleston, there are roughly 80 firefighters on in each shift.

The senior Thomes, himself a veteran firefighter, said while it may seem too soon for his son to go back to work, it's important for him to be with his colleagues to start the healing process.

"What are they going to do otherwise? Lock themselves in the house or go to a bar and start drinking? Part of this is getting it out," Thomes explained.

Thomes said he believes his son will be all right. He is tough and competitive, he said, a third generation firefighter who was a star running back and voted most valuable player on Portland High School's football team his senior year.

The younger Thomes moved South after graduating in 1998 and found work as a fitness trainer before becoming a firefighter.

Three other Portland firefighters will join Thomes and his son in Charleston today. They will ride with the senior Thomes on the long drive back.

"It is a big brotherhood. It is my family," he said.

The impact of the firefighter deaths stretches beyond Charleston. In Portland, firefighters are planning a fundraiser for later this summer to benefit the families of the nine Charleston firefighters.

Fire departments across the country will look for lessons from the fire, said Portland Fire Chief Fred LaMontagne, who pointed out that coincidently this is National Fire Safety and Stand Down Week.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health likely will publish a report on the response, he said, and it will be studied by every fire department with an eye to adjusting their own protocols, he said.

"But sometimes," he said of the tragedy, "it is just the unfortunate nature of the job."

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