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Community honors the life of firefighter Chris Mertz with memorial procession

Area residents and firefighters turned out Sunday morning, Jan. 24, to honor 54-year-old Temecula resident and Rancho Santa Fe Fire Capt. Chris Mertz, who died Jan. 20, from complications related to COVID-19.

Mertz's family and Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District personnel were present at Temecula Valley Hospital as his body was transferred to a waiting hearse, which they followed in a procession escorted by the California Highway Patrol to Miller-Jones Mortuary in Menifee. Meanwhile, crews from area fire departments, including Cal Fire Riverside, and many community members who wanted to pay their respects to the fallen firefighter gathered on freeway overpasses along northbound Interstate 15 between the hospital and the mortuary.

According to a statement from the Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District announcing Mertz's death, he was a 30-year veteran of the fire district and was stationed at Fire Station 5 in Harmony Grove Village west of Escondido.

The fire district, which said it considered Mertz's passing a line-of-duty death, called his career a distinguished one. Mertz worked for the Federal Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service early in his career, working during his time with the Forest Service on the Laguna Hot Shots, "an elite hand crew based out of the Descanso Ranger District," the fire district said.

Mertz was an original member of and remained active in San Diego Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 8, which responded to the World Trade Center after 9/11 and to assist with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to the fire district.

A fundraiser page created for Mertz's family, which had raised nearly $75,000 out of a goal of $100,000 as of Sunday night, described him as "an example of all that is good, self-sacrificing, and service to other(s)."

"He made us all better because of who he was," according to the post on the fundraising page.

He is survived by his wife Canli, his son Garrett – himself a firefighter for Cal Fire San Diego – and daughters Natalie and Roxanne, both of whom serve in the U.S. Air Force.

The fundraiser for the Mertz family can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/donate/203462664810139/?fundraiser_source=external_url.

Will Fritz can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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