RIP Hal Bruno

One of firefighters best friend, Hal Bruno passed away today. From Firehouse.com (Bruno helped make this magizine one of the foremost authority of firefighting): The fire service has lost one of its finest champions in the passing of Hal Bruno, a firefighter for more than 60 years, a renowned columnist and most recently the chairman emeritus of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF). He died Tuesday evening at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., from complications from a fall he had taken on Friday (Nov. 4). He was 83.
"Hal Bruno has been phenomenal in his support for the fire service," said Ron Siarnicki, executive director of the NFFF in an early morning interview with Firehouse.com. "He has been instrumental in getting the fire service where it is today."
As of early this morning, funeral services were being arranged by the family and Siarnicki said the NFFF would organize its own tribute "within then the next couple of days."
For the past 10 years, Siarnicki has worked "side by side" with Bruno on many of the initiatives the NFFF has taken, notably with the annual Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend.
"He was just an amazing guy," Siarnicki said, noting that it was Bruno who hired him as the foundation's executive director 10 years ago.
He was a native of Chicago and had a 60-plus year career in journalism retiring in 1999 from ABC News where he was political director and host of the weekly talk show "Hal Bruno's Washington." He was a frequent television political panelist and covered every national election since 1960.
Bruno combined his love of journalism and his passion for the fire service by becoming one of the original contributing editors for Firehouse magazine since its founding in 1976, having published countless articles in print and on line with Firehouse.com reflecting on the state of the fire service and personal observations from more than half a century in the fire service. He drew upon his experiences as a director of the Chevy Chase, Md. Fire Department and as chairman of the NFFF.
Bruno was appointed chairman of the NFFF in 1999, a distinction he held until his retirement in 2008. During that time, according to the NFFF, Bruno expanded services and resources for survivors, including workshops, conferences and scholarships. He also developed safety initiatives for firefighters and advanced safe practices to help reduce the number of line of duty deaths and injuries.
That passion for safety was something Siarnicki saw firsthand while on the job in Prince George's County, Md. Siarnicki, who later served as chief of the department, said this morning that he worked on a fire sprinkler initiative in Prince George's county after a tragic house fire in which several children perished. That tragedy sparked a two-page spread in the Washington Post newspaper that helped advance the cause of residential sprinklers, Siarnicki said.
http://www.firehouse.com/news/top-headlines/fire-service-mourns-loss-legend-leader-hal-bruno
The fire service will miss Bruno's leadership and his ability to generate publicity to help firefighters now and in the future and he will be missed.