Episode Details

Wilmington pauses to honor firefighter Joe Willard, who died over a century ago in 1893 while battling a warehouse blaze—his life lost when a collapsing roof crushed him on the scene. Though he’d been reluctant to respond that morning, duty called, and he answered, becoming the only firefighter to perish in that fire. Decades later, his great-nephew donated a rare framed photo, possibly the oldest known image of a Wilmington firefighter, now displayed at the department’s headquarters as a tribute to his sacrifice and a living link between past heroes and today’s brave responders.

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