I VISITED the day after.

It was on my way home from work on Thursday.

Off the Dart. Through Bray. Over the bridge across the Dargle. The mountain ridgeline to the west outlined in pink. Kids in the People's Park getting in some football before the light fades.

At the disused factory at Adelaide Villas, a knot of people. Closer. The air thick with charcoal and day-old roses. A woman makes the sign of the cross. A man with a thick moustache and skin the colour of caramel holds the hand of a small boy with dark curls under a red ballcap as they stare at the site. The boy looks up and speaks in a language I can't understand but I see son look at father and father bite his lip and nod, and now I know the question: "This is where they died?"

At my feet, on the corner, are orderly ranks of bouquets by the dozen. Right at the front there's a green wrap bursting with white, red and purple with a card that begins "To the Greatest 'Da' ever".

Signed on behalf of "8 sons, 7 daughters and 7 grandchildren".

Brian Murray (46) and Mark O'Shaughnessy (26).

The two Bray firefighters who lost their lives on Wednesday when the roof collapsed in the building they were in.

It was only a few days earlier we moved into our house, a football pitch's length away from the fire.

Murray was a builder, it's reported. It's possible that as we got bits and pieces at the builders' yard or Woodies DIY off the Boghall Road, we brushed shoulders.

It doesn't diminish their sacrifice to recognise that their deaths have raised questions about the level of fire service in Co Wicklow. Just 15 "retained" firefighters . . . on call, not full-time . . . are available to all call-outs in Bray and its environs, covering 34,000 people. That amounted to 232 incidents in 2005, the last year for which statistics are available.

Last March, Wicklow County Council published a feasibility study of full-time fire cover in Bray, noting that population centres of comparable size in Meath, Louth and Waterford had at least some full-time cover.

The current system was already under pressure: "there have been difficulties in the past in maintaining a full complement [of 15 firefighters].

This problem is not unique to Bray. There is an emerging belief, nationally, that it may be necessary to restructure some retained services, so that firefighters may be available for different periods of time as opposed to the present system of general availabilityf" Brian Murray's wife, Mary, told the Press Association: "This week, there has been uproar about what has happened in Bray.

Next week, it will be forgotten. I want to know how many more will it take before we put a full-time service into Bray."

Ireland hasn't lost firefighters in the line since 1936.

Their sacrifice won't be forgotten; but it's all too possible it will be ignored by politicians when it matters.

Professionalising fire services is a worldwide trend. It goes hand in hand with higher population densities and more traffic and it's surprising it hasn't yet happened in Bray.

But there are other lessons.

This was long a brownfield site, neglected while furniture residues and the dumped rubbish it was attracting were becoming dry tinder. Why wasn't it addressed sooner?

Most boys, at some point, want to grow up to be firemen. Probably because what they do is an almost uniquely simple and uncomplicated thing of good. They face danger and save lives.

Brian Murray and Mark O'Shaughnessy died to protect us: the just and the unjust, the commuter and the retired, the old and the young, the native-born and the immigrant. They died protecting my wife and my baby boys when I wasn't there. People they didn't know and probably never have met.

They owed us nothing, yet they gave their lives.

In an age when men are small and talk is action, they were giants and they are heroes. The place where they fell is hallowed ground.

Simple decency requires we listen to Brian Murray's widow.

Common sense requires we heed her call. It can't begin to repay what we owe, but it's a start.