Members of the Madison Iranian community and the Madison Fire Department came together Tuesday to honor 16 firefighters who died while rescuing people from the Plasco Trade Center in Tehran, Iran last month.
Majid Sarmadi, a professor in the department of design studies and materials science graduate program at the University of Wisconsin, began the ceremony by extending the sympathies of the Iranian community to the firefighters lost in the line of duty. He also thanked MFD for their bravery at the ceremony.
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MFD honored the Iranian firefighters who died with a firefighter tradition of the Bell Ceremony. To symbolize those who died in the line of duty, they rang the bell nine times with a pause after every third ring.
A firefighter played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes to conclude the ceremony.
The ceremony was created, Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, District 5, said after Sarmadi contacted her about the tragedy. They thought it would be symbolic to thank the firefighters in Madison and connect them to the Iranian community in the city.
“I think it’s important for people to really recognize the individuals that make up our Iranian community in Madison and put a face to the realities of our community,” Bidar-Sielaff said.
MFD Chief Steven Davis said the leaders in the Madison Iranian community wanted to honor the firefighters as part of their grieving process.
This ceremony helps build community, Davis said. It is important for MFD and the city to recognize the Iranian community is part of the Madison community as a whole.
The firefighter community, Davis said, is a small fraternity and they are all dealing with the loss.
“It’s a fraternity, we’re all a very close knit family,” Davis said. “We’re close with other firefighters in other states, and so it’s like a death in the family for the survivors.”
In Iran, there were more than one million people attending the funerals, Sarmadi said.
Being a firefighter is a tough job since they risk their lives everyday for citizens, Sarmadi said, and he wanted to bring awareness to this.
Sarmadi said the ceremony was an opportunity to thank the firefighters and turn a negative event into something positive.
“I wanted to bring it to the attention of the citizens of Wisconsin and the city of Madison residents that any time that you see a firefighter, thank them, because you never know when you’ll need them,” Sarmadi said. “They put their lives in danger for you, for me, for everybody else.”
