The fire service is a universal brotherhood. When a first responder loses their life in service to their community, it is a loss to all of their comrades in the service.

That truism was evident as hundreds of firefighters and scores of emergency vehicles lined the route of two hearses as they traveled Route 309, Route 100, Tilghman Street and Parkway Road from the fire station of Community Fire Company New Tripoli to the Lehigh County Coroner’s facility in the Lehigh County Joint Operations Center, along Broadway, in South Whitehall Township Dec. 8.

The hearses carried the bodies of two volunteer firefighters who lost their lives at a three-alarm house fire in Schuylkill County Dec. 7.

Along the route, emergency vehicles lined the roadway with emergency lights blinking in silent tribute. As the hearses passed, police, ambulance and fire personnel snapped to attention and saluted the fallen firefighters.

Along the last mile to the operations center, emergency vehicles from three counties were bumper-to-bumper along Tilghman Street and Parkway Road. First responders, in their turnout gear or dress uniforms, saluted as the hearses, accompanied by apparatus from fire stations in northwestern Lehigh County, passed in procession.

As the hearses neared the coroner’s facility, they paused under a flag arch formed by the aerial ladders from the South Whitehall Township Fire Company’s Cetronia Station and the Western Salisbury Volunteer Fire Company. A siren sounded from the Western Salisbury truck in tribute and crews held their salute until the hearses had passed.

It was a stirring scene, with local citizens and personnel from the Cetronia Ambulance Corps, which is also housed in the facility, visibly moved.

The New Tripoli volunteer firefighters, Assistant Fire Chief Zachary Paris, 36 and firefighter Marvin Gruber, 59, were in the burning home in West Penn Township, Schuylkill County, searching for possible trapped victims. The home was destroyed and two other firefighters were injured fighting the smoky blaze.