The thing about this job is that there really aren't any off days.
Any more it seems like there aren't any off hours.
That's what I was thinking Saturday morning when I started to write a brief on a very bad fire in North Philadelphia.
I was in the middle of writing it when the story changed drastically - in a most tragic way.
A Philadelphia firefighter was killed battling the row home fire. He had been trapped when there was a structure collapse inside the house and he was trapped in the debris.
But I was barely done writing those words when the story took another major shift - and made it a different animal altogether for the Daily Times.
I started noticing on social media condolences being offered to Springfield Fire Co.
It did not take long to find out why.
Matt LeTourneau, the Philly fire lieutenant who was killed in the blaze, was a Springfield native and longtime Springfield Fire Co. volunteer.
I quickly started making plans to cover the story, dispatching reporter Kathleen Carey late Saturday afternoon to pay a visit to the Springfield Fire House, where members were starting the grim process of placing black bunting over the front bay doors.
We actually juggled some of our planned coverage so we could lead the paper with the tragic news of LeTourneau's death.
It's part of what we do. It's not unusual for news to dictate changes in our coverage, and things that you have carefully planned all week can change in a heartbeat.
When I woke up Sunday morning, the LeTourneau story was still on my mind.
This kind of story resonates with our readers, and I wanted to make sure we did right by LeTourneau - and the firefighting community - by getting more reaction to his sudden passing.
I again decided to lead Monday's paper with the story.
But getting there involved some details I had not taken into account. Let's just say that there were a number of phone calls made and that I talked to several people in attempts to move ahead with the story.
The one thing I did not want to do was simply ignore the story. That kind of action gives the impression that we somehow are downplaying the loss of LeTourneau, or showing disrespect to the firefighting community. And that is something I fight against almost every day.
In many of these instances, I understand there is a natural bit of distrust of the media. It's a time of intense emotions, feeling laid bare, broken hearts and intense grief.
It is into that morass we trudge in order to do our job. It is not unusual for people to be reluctant to talk. Some are more open than others.
But I want people to know that in pushing for this story today, I did not do so to take advantage of another tragedy.
I did it to honor the life and work of Matt LeTourneau - and in fact all of our first responders.
I hope that today's front page and story did just that.
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