HEROES HONORED

CAPTAIN WINS BRONZE MEDAL OF VALOR

By Adam Lilling
HV staff

For volunteer firefighter Louis Alar, home is the Hyattsville fire station and heart is in the firefighting.

Last month, the Prince George's County Chamber of Commerce awarded the 27-year-old University Maryland graduate alumna - who also served three years at the College Park fire station - the bronze medal of valor "for unusual personal risk, judgment, zeal and ingenuity in the performance of [his] duties."

Alar - a captain - pulled a man from a burning house in Lewisdale in the pre-dawn hours of June 27 last year.

An arsonist, a 19-year-old relative of the residents, set the structure ablaze using flammable liquids at about five o'clock in the morning, Alar said.

"We got the call. We got there quick."

What Alar and three other crews found was a house engulfed in flames and three victims trapped inside.

Career firefighter Ronald A. Brown led the way with the hoseline while Alar and Career Capt. John K. O'Brien went in for the victims. Brown and O'Brien were also awarded bronze medals.

Inside, "blackness" from the heavy smoke charged the air. Blackness which later claimed the lives of the three victims. But Alar only knew he needed to get them out quickly.

"We shot right down the hallway and I found [the victim] at the end of the hallway - unconscious."

The call and rescue took just five minutes.

"I really didn't feel I was worthy of [the bronze medal]."

But the awards ceremony changed his opinion. "I felt a little more comfortable with it ... We put ourselves in danger going in ahead of the hoseline. I felt a little better after the ceremony."

Rescuing a victim from a burning building is automatic Alar said.

"We don't give it much thought because of training - and your reaction is second nature."

He's been around firefighters for most of his life.

"Actually, I was hanging out around the firehouse when I was 8-years-old because I lived across the street."

The fire station he lived across the street from served his hometown of Shavertown, Pa., and served as his "second home."

His involvement in fire safety came at a difficult time in his life. "My dad died when I was 14. That had a lot to do with [my involvement with firefighting]"

He credits the Shavertown firefighters for setting him in the right direction.

"It kind of keeps you out of trouble when you're that age. It gives you responsibility."

Ironically, his cousin - who is also 14 - recently lost his father. Once again the Shavertown crew are providing a role model.

"They kind of helped me get through that whole, now they're helping him. That's a pretty important thing - at least part of my life, anyway," Alar said.

Winning a bronze medal doesn't make him feel like a hero, he said. "I came back the next day. That night we were running calls and all this other stuff."

"Louis is a pretty good leader. He's caring. He's a good person to be behind. Louis helped me out a lot - learning the ropes and dealing with people. It's pretty cool," said Darryle Guarino, a University of Maryland student and volunteer firefighter who lives at the station.

Alar said he'll continue fighting fires while he works at Catholic University in Washington as a fire safety technician.

Although he can't put a finger on his interest in firefighting, he said there's "an obligation" to it for providing direction in his life.

"A lot of people, it's in their blood, and they can't describe why."

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Updated 5/4/96