17 Firefighters Killed May 1954 - from the Rio de Janeiro FD website - SEDEC/Notice # 011-2000
3. ORDER OF THE DAY TO THE " HEROES OF THE ISLAND OF THE STRONG ARM " - NOTE GAB/SEDEC/AJG-011/2000
Forty and six years if had passed since that 17 destemidos men had delivered its lives in holocausto for the common good in the Island of the Strong Arm.
Our memory is moved to the night of 6 for 7 of May (May 6) of 1954, when a garrison of 23 men had embarked in the General motor boat Cunha Pires with destination to the Island of the Strong Arm, in order to suppress a fire that came out in one of the deposits of Customs.
Those soldiers did not know what was burning, did not have greater information, but the fire, the inclement enemy, needed to be destroyed. 40 minutes into the day of May 7, when still they disembarked in the island, firemen had been surprised at the explosion that would cut with a scythe 17 lives of a Pleiad of brave.
Those men composed a garrison whose only objective is to save lives and good. Wounds had been opened in the hearts of the family, the seio of the corporation and the society as a whole, but the firemen could not stop; they did not have this right, other fires needed to be fought, other lives needed to be salutes.
With passing of the years, the wounds if had become scars, sad scars of plus a page of sacrifices of the Military Body of Firemen of the State of Rio De Janeiro. Honors to that if they had been, leaving an example to be followed: The objective established for the man must be searched, the mission of the fireman is fulfilled, still that it is in exchange for its proper life.
Let us glorify our m�rtires:
Ten Cel BM Gabriel Da Silva Telles CAP BM Washington de Souza Lima 1� Sgt BM Edgard de Barros Lima 3� Sgt BM Epit�cio Costa 3� Sgt BM Manoel Antonio Pe�anha 3� Sgt BM Cl�udio de Souza 3� Sgt BM Am�ncio Da Silva 3� Sgt BM Antonio Pereira Brazil 3� Sgt BM Jorge Sant'ana 3� Sgt BM Thom�z Da Silva Rufino 3� Sgt BM Manoel Gomes Da Cruz 3� Sgt BM Jose Edson Vilella 3� Sgt BM Orlando Xavier of Costa 3� Sgt BM Antonio Cez�rio 3� Sgt BM Mozart Nery Bacelar 3� Sgt BM J � lio Martins Rosa 3� Sgt BM Walter M � rio Cardoso