A 'quiet hero - the best kind'

Brian Kopp was a firefighter who lived to help others

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 3, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

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The casket and mourners were gone and the cavernous church sanctuary was silent.

Used tissues littered the floor in the front row where Brian Kopp's family had been seated. On the floor in front of the stage, the firefighter's boots and suit lay neatly folded, his last name visible in bright yellow letters.

The suit was dirty and worn from years of battling fires and dealing with medical emergencies.

It represented the core of Kopp's identity - a man of action who lived to help others.

Family and friends praised the 38-year-old father from Larkspur for his achievements as a pilot, house designer and skilled carpenter. They said he never boasted.

"If you asked him what he did, he would simply tell you he was a fireman," his brother, Kenneth Kopp, a commander in the Navy, said during the service, conveying a message from the firefighter's wife, Jennifer.

Kopp died Dec. 27 in an avalanche during a snowmobiling trip in Grand County. Before being smothered by the snowslide, he had tried to help another snowmobiler, Mark Goetz, 19, who also died.

Kopp's reputation for helping others was the foundation of a formal firefighter tribute at his funeral Friday at Church of the Rock.

More than 900 people attended the service, including scores of men in blue who lined the sanctuary walls. Kopp had served eight years at South Metro Fire Rescue and was preparing to become a lieutenant.

His close friend, Chuck Goetz, served as a pallbearer.

It was Goetz's second funeral of the week.

On Wednesday, Goetz buried his son, Mark. Chuck Goetz was caught in the same slide on Gravel Mountain but survived.

Chuck Goetz and Kopp were avid snowmobilers. Photos of them on their "sleds" were shown during the service. The screen also projected images of Kopp windsurfing, hunting and jumping on a trampoline.

Kenneth Kopp reveled at the projects his brother worked on, including restoring an airplane and an antique piano, and studying toward an advanced pilot rating.

"Brian was a man who simply loved doing things, clearly marching to the beat of his own drum," Kopp said. "When I asked him when he was going to finish those projects . . . he said . . . 'Why would I want to do that? I enjoy working on them too much.' "

Kopp called his brother a "quiet hero - the best kind" who would have been embarrassed by the crowd at the funeral.

Friend and fellow firefighter paramedic Mike Porter said Kopp adored his family and was "full of compassion" and didn't like sitting around.

"On days when the calls were few and we didn't get out much, it drove him crazy," Porter said. "He wanted to be running calls all the time."

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361

How to help

* Donations for the Kopp family can be made to:

The Brian Kopp Memorial Fund

Account #2853013472

c/o First Bank

P.O. Box 1300

Castle Rock, CO 80104

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