A week after 168 union firefighters and emergency service personnel are honored Saturday in Colorado Springs, the landmark memorial where the annual service takes place will be rebuilt to make room for thousands of additional names.

Nearly $4 million from the International Association of Fire Fighters’ 300,000 members will pay for a redesigned and expanded memorial that will allow the addition of 3,469 names of firefighters who died in the line of duty from 1918 to 1975, IAFF Local 5 President Jeremy Kroto said. The new memorial should have enough room on the walls for names to be added for 30 years.

“It is unfortunate to say that we’ve lost so many firefighters from line-of-duty risks and diseases that we need more room, but that’s the case,” Kroto said. “With the addition of all the names, we’ll be looking at nearly 6,000 firefighters and emergency service personnel memorialized. Sadly, we’ll always need room for the memorial to grow.”

At Saturday’s 28th annual IAFF Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial Service, 168 people will be honored, including the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died in last year’s 
Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona.

Family members and firefighters from across the United States and Canada will fill Memorial Park for the national ceremony, Kroto said.

“The ceremony is an occasion to honor the sacrifice made by IAFF members who lost their lives in the line of duty,” Kroto said.

A procession of fire engines and vehicles from across Colorado and more than 400 motorcyclists will depart from the Chapel Hills Mall at noon. It will travel east on Briargate Boulevard to Union Boulevard and make its way south to Pikes Peak Avenue, with rolling road closures as the procession moves along, Kroto said.

The memorial statue of a firefighter descending a ladder cradling a child was erected in 1987, and memorial walls were added in 1989 and 2002, and now display more than 2,800 names of fallen firefighters who died since 1976. The union researched each member killed in the line of duty from 1918 through 1975 so those names could be added, Kroto said.

The new design will add seating for up to about 5,000 people, and the audience will face the mountains. The landmark statue will remain.

Colorado Springs urban landscape and architecture design firm Thomas & Thomas designed the new memorial, a project that is expected to be completed by mid-2015, Kroto said.

A model of the new memorial will be on display at the Hotel Elegante, on South Circle Drive, beginning Tuesday.

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Contact Andrea Sinclair:

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Local firefighters with the CSFD are spending their time off this week doing maintenance on the IAFF National Fire Fighter Memorial in Memorial Park to get ready for the annual service this Saturday. Chris Thomas and Jesse Weddle (left to right) hand clean and shine the Wall of Honor on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. The Wall of Honor bears the name of the firefighters who have died in the line of duty that are members of the IAFF. There were 168 names added to the wall this year, the most names added in a year since 9/11. Amongst the 168 names are the 19 Hotshots that were killed in Arizona last June while fighting wildfires. (The Gazette/Jerilee Bennett)

The IAFF National Fire Fighter Memorial at the corner of Pikes Peak Ave. and Hancock Ave. in Memorial Park will be completely remodeled to make room for every IAFF member killed in the line of duty since the association’s inception in 1918. Nearly $4 million from the IAFF’s 300,000 members will pay for a complete redesign and expansion of the memorial to add 3,469 names, IAFF Local 5 President Jeremy Kroto said. (Sketch courtesy of Thomas and Thomas)

The IAFF National Fire Fighter Memorial at the corner of Pikes Peak Ave. and Hancock Ave. in Memorial Park will be completely remodeled to make room for every IAFF member killed in the line of duty since the association’s inception in 1918. Nearly $4 million from the IAFF’s 300,000 members will pay for a complete redesign and expansion of the memorial to add 3,469 names, IAFF Local 5 President Jeremy Kroto said. (Sketch courtesy of Thomas and Thomas)