Charleston, SC - They train to live and he lives to train, Pine Ridge Deputy Fire Chief Jeffrey Thompson is committed to fire safety and to passing it along.

Thompson is a volunteer and so are the men he trained this week and so were his brother Brandon and Michael French, two members of the Charleston Nine. All are part of this small Berkeley county volunteer fire department.

"I go to a fire call I think of my brother. I send men into a burning house, I think of my brother,” Thompson said.

Thompson says that night is impossible to forget and so is the phone call he received from a fellow firefighter.

"He said Jeff I need to tell you something, need to be calm. I said is he down there. He said yea," Thompson recalled.

He was the older brother who led his younger brother into the profession at the age of 14. He responded to the scene and these brothers in arms left the scene one final time together.

"I asked Chief Rusty if I could walk my brothers’ body out and he said yes,” he said. "I had closure real quick, I walked my brother out. I knew where he was found, knew what he looked like.”

A job made safer through the death of Brandon and his brothers in uniform.

"Brendan is looking down knowing stuff that he wanted for grants is now being funded because of his death,” Thompson said.

When the trucks roll safety is paramount which is seen to it by a brother guided by the memory of the Charleston Nine.

"He was a fireman’s fireman.”

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