Muscatine Fire Department holds special service to honor fallen fire fighter

MUSCATINE, Iowa (KWQC) -The Muscatine Fire Department held a special service Thursday to honor Mike Kruse, a Muscatine firefighter who died in the line of duty back in 2002.

During Thursday’s service, each firefighter of the department marched out together, raised the flag to half-staff, and gave their salute. A wreath with the words hero was placed at the memorial shortly after. The service happened at the firefighter’s memorial at the Muscatine Fire Station at 312 East Fifth Street at 7 a.m.

Kruse died in 2002 while fighting an overnight house fire. He was one of two firefighters working on the home’s roof when he fell through into the house.

Jerry Ewers, Muscatine Fire Chief was working the night Kruse died.

“When you have a stressful event like that and you perform a rescue and it’s one of your own, it’s something that you can never imagine or you probably never experienced in your lifetime,” Ewers said.

Four firefighters who worked with Kruse are still on active duty with MFD and six others either retired or moved on. Since Kruse’s death, the Muscatine Fire Department has dedicated itself to daily training on firefighting skills and safety.

“We did implement some additional roof operation training, changed some sop’s after the fact the goal now is just to continually train so you can hound the skills of the job of a firefighter. My goal as fire chief is to make sure we don’t add another name to the memorial wall,” Ewers said.

Kruse still remains the only Muscatine Firefighter to die in the line of duty.

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