For the last 20 years, New Hampshire firefighters, their loved ones and supporters have a designated place to honor those who died in service to others.
The New Hampshire Firefighters Memorial, located at the state’s fire academy in Concord, was dedicated in 2006 as a central place for the state as a whole to memorialize firefighters who died while still in their roles. It now has 98 names, including four added at a ceremony at the end of September:
- Charles Gallant of the Rye Fire Department, who died in 2023.
- William Connor of the Goffstown Fire Department who died in 2024
- Aaron Cooper of the Keene Fire Department, who died in 2025.
- George Hidden, of the Nashua Fire Department, who died in a 1909 accident but had not previously been included in the memorial.
The memorial, at the state complex on Smokey Bear Boulevard, serves both as a place for colleagues and loved ones of those passed to honor their lives and service, but also as a monument to the risks of the profession.
“There’s some names of people on that wall I trained with, and there’s some names of a few people on that wall I was really good friends with,” explained Tom Blanchette, chief of the Loudon Police Department. “In the back of your mind, every day that you go to work, you know that there’s a chance.”
Blanchette noted that a recent class of recruits attended the dedication ceremony, watching red and white carnations laid atop the memorial’s granite and brick tableau.
“When we get up in the middle of night and leave, we may not be coming home,” he said. “It becomes real for a lot of people when they sit here.”
