FDNY firefighter Timothy Klein remembered at his funeral as 'born to be a hero'

Firefighter Timothy Klein was just 31 years old when he was killed Sunday while battling a 3-alarm blaze at a Brooklyn house.

But in his short life, Klein proved himself a man “born to be a hero,” working to save lives on the job and volunteering in his time off to help disabled people, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday in one of four eulogies at Klein’s funeral.

“Timothy spent his free time building ramps so people with disabilities could get around their homes — just continuing to give back and continuing to show who he is, and who he was to us,” Adams said of Klein, who lived in Belle Harbor, Queens. One of the ramps he helped build was in Seaford.

Thousands memorialized Klein on Friday, including fellow firefighters from the FDNY and across the country, civilians, schoolchildren and his family. Mourners assembled inside and outside St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, Klein’s parish. The service lasted more than 2 1/2 hours.

Mourners noted that Klein came from a family of firefighters, including his father and other relatives, and a grandfather who was a police officer.

“Looking back,” Adams said, “it’s clear that Tim was born to be a hero.”

In Sunday’s fire, Klein, of Ladder Company 170 in Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood, was one of four firefighters caught in the partial ceiling collapse of a burning home on Avenue N.

A scene commander, noticing suddenly deteriorating conditions and the floor being engulfed in flames, had just instructed those firefighters to abandon the structure. Three of them were able to escape — jumping out of windows or climbing down ladders — but not Klein.

“He didn’t make it home,” Adams said. “He’s home now.” 

The fire also killed a 21-year-old man in the house, Carlos Richards, whose body was found inside.

The FDNY said Friday evening that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Adams, himself a former police captain, noted the presence Friday of several of Klein’s fellow firefighters who were injured in Sunday’s blaze. They had left the hospital, temporarily, to attend the Mass to pay their respects.

“Some came from the hospital here to say goodbye to their brother,” Adams said.

And in a eulogy that elicited a roaring ovation, his mother, Dee Dee, recalled how her son had overcome childhood illness, a rare form of anemia, which necessitated blood transfusions and medication, and surgery to remove his spleen.

“He was a frequent flyer at LIJ Children’s Hospital,” she said, adding that the experience helped make him who he was.

“We believe going through his medical adversities played a very huge part in making him into the unbelievable human being he turned out to be,” she said, adding that Klein had firefighting in his blood. He was “a quiet leader, a take-charge sort of guy, and not one to back down from a challenge,” she said.

During his eulogy, Adams turned toward Klein’s father, who was an FDNY firefighter in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed 343 FDNY members in 2001.

“Patrick, you saw our center of trade collapse, and so many of your fellow firefighters during 9/11, but you continued to push through, one of the few that was able to leave. Now to lose your son in this way, it was devastating,” Adams said.

‘You will never be forgotten’

Klein was the 1,157th FDNY firefighter to die in the line of duty, and his funeral had the solemn pageantry bestowed upon those who die that way. He was buried at St. Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale. His coffin was transported in a motorcade that traveled from New York City to Long Island.

Late Friday morning, a roar of motorcycles led the procession to the church, followed by police cars and fire engines flashing lights and sirens, and bagpipes when the funeral began.

A Ladder Company 170 truck from Klein’s Canarsie firehouse pulled past the church with a decal on the front window, “In loving memory of Steven Pollard and Timothy Klein” — a joint epitaph also memorializing a firefighter Klein had eulogized in 2019.

FDNY Acting Commissioner Laura Kavanagh recalled the eulogy Klein himself delivered in Pollard’s memory three years ago after Pollard fell to his death through a gap in a roadway while responding to a car crash on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

“I can think of no better words to honor Tim today than his own words that he wrote for Steven, and I quote: 'We lost a true hero that day. Though your time as a fireman was short, the impact you made and the example that you set will live on in the hearts of Canarsie forever. You will never be forgotten,'” she said.

Fellow FDNY firefighter and Klein’s childhood friend, Vincent Geary, another eulogist, described how his first impulse upon being asked to deliver a eulogy was to send a text message asking for Klein’s help, and then realizing that his friend wasn’t there to help.

Geary recalled Klein through his many nicknames during his seven years with the FDNY: Timmer, the Canarsie Kid, Klein-O, Little Timmy from Rockaway Beach, TK, “and our favorite one of all, the Golden Child.”

“I worked with Tim on Sunday. He responded as he always did — prepared, excited, eager for what that job would bring us. He died doing what he loved. Being a fireman was his true purpose in life: A hero. Always putting others before himself,” Geary said to a standing ovation.

In a homily, the Rev. William Sweeney praised the readings the Klein family — including sisters Tara, Bridget and Erin, and girlfriend Courtney Gallagher — helped choose, such as from the Book of Wisdom (“a young person though he die young will be at rest”).

“The amazing thing about Timmy,” Sweeney said, “is that he accomplished so much in such a short time. He had so much going on, and so much happening.”  Maybe St. Peter's home in heaven needed a ramp, the priest mused.

Sweeney noted that Klein was supposed to be part of a wedding of friends the next day at the same church. Instead, the couple will pause to remember, in memoriam.

After playing singer-songwriter Dierks Bentley’s “Free and Easy,” clergy left the church as Klein’s coffin was carried out, draped in an FDNY flag.  Bagpipes played as firefighters saluted the coffin while it was blessed by priests with holy water. 

Firefighters stood in silent salute while six helicopters flew over the final funeral procession. 

FDNY officials presented Klein’s family with his fire helmet as they left the church. 

The coffin was loaded onto the back of a fire engine with a nameplate — Timothy P. Klein, Ladder Company 170 — as firefighters saluted and trumpets played “Taps.”