Kootenai County buildings to glow red honoring fallen firefighters

Fire stations and other buildings across Kootenai County will glow red from April 26 through May 3 to honor Coeur d’Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Frank Harwood, the two local firefighters killed in the Canfield Mountain ambush in Coeur d’Alene last summer.

The display is part of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s annual Light the Night for Fallen Firefighters tribute, which invites communities in all 50 states to illuminate landmarks, businesses, firehouses and homes in red. In Kootenai County, that means the tribute will be visible not just at fire stations, but across the community, turning a simple color into a public sign of grief, respect and solidarity for the families left behind.

The lighting will coincide with National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend in Emmitsburg, Maryland. On May 3, Morrison and Harwood will be among 204 firefighters added to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial, placing two Kootenai County names into a national roster that now stretches across decades of line-of-duty loss. The foundation says flags at the memorial are lowered to half-staff about every three days to honor another firefighter who has died in the line of duty, a reminder of how often the profession still carries that cost.

The tribute has a particularly local meaning in a county where fire protection is built on constant readiness. Kootenai County Fire and Rescue says it operates five fire stations throughout its response area, and four of them are staffed seven days a week, 24 hours a day. That round-the-clock coverage underscores the risks firefighters accept on every shift, from routine calls to the kind of deadly encounter that took Morrison and Harwood on Canfield Mountain.

For families, coworkers and neighbors, the red glow will be more than a symbolic gesture. It will mark the places where firefighters work, gather and wait for the next alarm, while honoring the two battalion chiefs whose deaths are still felt across Kootenai County and whose names now will be carried into the national memorial in Emmitsburg.