The late firefighter Sulistyo Putranto, 24, refused to go to police academy after finishing high school, despite his mother’s insistence.
“My mom kept telling him over and over of the advantages of being a policeman, but he just said no,” Dini Aprilia, Sulistyo’s younger sister, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
She said her mother stopped pleading for him to become a police officer after he assured her he had dreamed since childhood of becoming a firefighter and following in his father’s footsteps.
Sulistyo died in the line of duty Thursday trying to put out a blaze that ripped through hundreds of homes in Tambora, West Jakarta.
He was knocked down by a collapsing wall while inside a gutted building with two other firefighters. He died on the way to the hospital.
The two others, Ahmad Sani and Jose Rico, survived with injuries.
Dini said her mother was in shock and could not accept that Sulistyo had died, and could only speak to close relatives and friends for now.
Puryantoro, a group leader at the Jakarta Disaster Management and Firefighting Agency’s Operational Aid unit, said Sulistyo was one of the promising firefighters in his team.
“He was enthusiastic about the job,” he told the Post.
“As an officer responsible for equipment distribution during fires, he was always curious about every detail of the equipment.”
He added Sulistyo had proved his reliability during a number of high-level assignments, including the recent earthquake in West Sumatra and the Sail Bunaken 2009 regatta in Manado, North Sulawesi.
Such assignments, Puryantoro said, were rarely given to a fledgling employee not yet promoted to full civil servant status.
He added Sulistyo’s death would be felt by all at the agency.
Of Thursday’s incident, Puryantoro said the fire had been brought under control, leaving only isolated small fires, but residents kept insisting that firefighters, including Sulistyo, check the buildings.
“The people kept saying there were still fires, when in fact these didn’t pose any danger and the firefighters weren’t familiar with the building structures,” he said.
Sulistyo, buried Friday at the Karet Bivak cemetery in Bendungan Hilir, Central Jakarta, was the latest firefighter to die in the line of duty.
In August 2005, Subandi, a group leader from the Tebet Fire Department, was killed trying to extinguish a blaze raging for two days at city-owned PD Pasar Jaya Market in Blok M, South Jakarta.
He got trapped on the second floor and succumbed to the smoke.
Fire engines and firefighters often face difficulties trying to put out flames in densely populated areas because the alleys are too narrow to get through. Broken hydrants also hamper firefighting efforts, leading to longer times to put out fires.
Despite the high risk of battling infernos, firefighters are not protected by life or accident insurance. Their limited manpower means they are often stretched, while hoax calls and heavy traffic also make the job more demanding.
Dini said Sulistyo chose his profession with conviction and was happy with it.
She described her brother as a quiet man who only broke into laughter when sharing a light moment with his firefighting colleagues.
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