A year after a house fire took the lives of three children and the three firefighters who tried to save them, Keokuk is still reflecting on the tragedy and trying to heal.
The blaze on Dec. 22, 1999, was among the deadliest in Iowa history, prompting sweeping changes in the way fire department train. Lawmakers increased death benefits for the families of firefighters and law enforcement officers who die in the line of duty.
Although Keokuk looks like most other Iowa towns three days before Christmas, the mother of the three children visits an empty lot where the burned home once stood and an American flag flies at half-staff at the fire department as it did a year ago.
The families of firefighters Dave McNally, 48; Nate Tuck, 39; and Jason Bitting, 29, place flowers at the men's graves.
The community lights candles in a city park on a cold night to remember the day they'd rather forget.
Melissa McFarland's frantic screams woke sleeping neighbors who held her back as she wanted to go into the burning home to retrieve her children.
The five firefighters on duty, who had been attending to another call, raced across town to the old apartment building.
McFarland had lifted her 4-year-old son from the second-story window by the time the firefighters arrived. Her three other children were trapped and the fire was spreading fast.
Three firefighters kicked in the front door and rushed inside. One soon emerged with Robert and Rebecca Cooper, 23-month-old twins who died later. The firefighters returned inside for 7-year-old Jessica McFarland. None came out alive.
Keokuk, instead of preparing for Christmas, prepared for six funerals.
Thousands of mourners packed a high school gym for a memorial service the day after Christmas. Nearly 3,000 firefighters from across the nation flew to Iowa and paid their respects in full uniform.
Mellisa McFarland returned to her burned home on Christmas Day last year and has visited the site several times since then with her surviving son, Jacob.
McFarland, 27, and her husband, Joe, bought the land after the fire and had the house demolished. They hope to turn the lot into a playground.
McFarland says she will always be grateful to the three firefighters who risked their lives to save her children.
''Those three men knew that challenge when they walked in the house,'' she said. ''That takes a lot of courage and strength.''
Christmas is the most painful reminder for the McFarlands. It was March before they took down the tree that Jessica had decorated in her grandmother's home last year.
''Putting up a new Christmas tree just about did me in,'' Melissa McFarland said. ''But we did it for Jake.''
Keokuk Fire Chief Mark Wessel relieved the tragic day minute by minute for months afterward as he filled out stacks of paperwork for state and national investigations.
Reports have concluded that the stove was on in the McFarland's apartment when some items caught fire. The firefighters died after what Wessel called a ''flashover'' -- a sudden burst of flames.
''I guess we didn't know how fast an environment can change,'' he said. ''We've had some major fires since that one, and it's amazing. There's a heightened awareness. What we may have taken for granted in the past in our jobs doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be that way.''
Hundreds of departments have stepped up training efforts as a result.
Gov. Tom Vilsack signed a bill in April creating a $100,000 benefit for the families of firefighters and other law enforcement officers who die in the line of duty.
Wessel has been invited to speak of the tragedy to firefighters as far a way as New Jersey.
Melissa McFarland and the widows of the firefighters have not spoken. Wessel also keeps his distance from the firefighters' surviving wives, saying it's too difficult to speak even a year later.
Kim Tuck and Barb McNally said they still were too upset to be interviewed. Colleen Bitting could not be reached.
Mayor Gary Folluo said the community is healing after a long year of grieving, complicated when the city turned down the request from the widows to pay $20,000 in funeral expenses.
Funeral costs weren't part of the contract negotiations with the firefighters' union, city officials said.
''We're trying to put things back together,'' Folluo said.
Wessel said last Christmas was difficult because he was still numb, but this year he hopes to put some of the emotions behind him.
''It's a scar that will never go away here,'' he said. ''But maybe this holiday will show us we can go on.''
