On July 29, 2011, the Asheville, North Carolina Fire Department had it's first Line of Duty Death since 1982. Asheville and surrounding departments had responded to an arson fire in a four story medical office building that eventually went to four alarms.
Captain Jeffery Bowen, a 13 year veteran of the fire service and his partner Jay Bettencourt called a Mayday as they started to get low on air and became disoriented. Unfortunately, Captain Bowen passed away from the injuries that he sustained during the fire, Firefighter Bettencourt received serious injuries but has since made a full recovery.

Attached in the video link below is Captain Bowen, Firefighter Bettencourt and the Asheville Fire Departments story. This is a seven minute video that was recently released by Mantooth Productions in coordination with the City of Asheville. This video should be mandatory for every firefighter to watch.

Please take the time to watch and learn from this event.

Click "Watch on Vimeo"