Actor Works to Keep Firefighters’ Needs in Spotlight

Two years before the attacks of September 11, 2001, thrust the profile of America’s first responders, including firefighters, into the spotlight, the actor Denis Leary started a foundation to support them, and this week he will host the organization’s largest annual fund-raising event in New York, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Leary Firefighters Foundation, founded in response to a December 1999 fire in Worcester, Mass., that killed six firefighters, including two who were close to Mr. Leary, has given more than $6-million to fire departments around the country. Recent donations included a gift of 15 search-and-rescue boats to the New Orleans Fire Department, which had none.

Mr. Leary, who lives in New York, stars in a television series, Rescue Me, that follows a group of New York firefighters. But he told the newspaper that, as September 11 grows further distant, the public’s interest in supporting firefighters is waning.

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