Asheville Firefighter Recounts the Fire That Took His Colleague’s Life

SWANNANOA – Jay Bettencourt scoffs at the suggestion that he is a hero.

Much like someone who’s just been told he’s actually 10 inches taller than he really is, Bettencourt just shakes his head, skeptical and puzzled that anyone would buy into such a strange notion.

“I’m a professional firefighter who does his job, just as a lot of other people do theirs,” Bettencourt said. “I know a lot of people who are much more heroic than I am. Being a firefighter doesn’t make you more of a hero.”

But given that he almost lost his life this year to save another firefighter — or just the way his little girl looks at him and gushes when he gives her a starter push on the tire swing he built for her — Jay Bettencourt is, by most definitions, heroic.

Bettencourt was only two years into his professional firefighting career with the Asheville Fire Department when he helped fight the July 28 blaze that made Asheville headlines and history, took the life of his friend and mentor Capt. Jeff Bowen, and nearly took his own.

But before he puts on his firefighter uniform every day, Bettencourt is a family man. He lives in Swannanoa with his wife, Lucy MacGregor, a Montessori school teacher, his daughter, Rowan, 4, and son, Elijah, 7.

Bettencourt has what can only be described as a boyish enthusiasm for fighting fires. Even after facing the blaze that almost killed him, he still describes the art and adrenaline of firefighting with an almost euphoric excitement, as “the most exhilarating thing you could imagine.”

As an avid outdoorsman and generally fearless adventure-seeker for most of his adult life, he was as physically and mentally prepared for a crisis as anyone could be.

The only one who was inarguably more prepared to battle the fire and win was Bowen, who was a 13-year department veteran and Bettencourt’s partner that day.

Bowen was an athlete, to say the least. He and Bettencourt planned to run the Charleston Marathon together next month, a challenge Bowen would have met with ease.

Read the entire article at Citizen-Times.com.