Only a few months after Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel went up in flames in December 1946, killing 119 people, Thomas Pate -- then fresh from a stint in the U.S. Army -- joined the Atlanta Fire Department.
He had been drafted just a little too late to fight in World War II, so he decided to fight fires instead.
He rose from rookie to captain and battalion chief, and by the time he retired in 1981, his family said, he had saved numerous lives and battled many blazes, including one in 1978 that gutted the historic Loew’s Grand Theater, best known as the site of the 1939 premiere of "Gone With the Wind."
After retiring from the Atlanta Fire Department, Mr. Pate became chief of the Douglasville Fire Department, and led that organization, now known as Douglas County Fire/EMS, until 1987.
Thomas D. Pate Sr. of Douglasville died Wednesday of cancer. He was 84. Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Douglas Chapel of Jones-Wynn Funeral Home, with interment at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.
Mr. Pate was drafted Jan. 1, 1945, after graduating early from Boys High School in Atlanta. He served in the Army and became a paratrooper, but it was too late to participate in the war. Upon returning to Atlanta, his father told him about the Winecoff disaster, and Mr. Pate became a firefighter, a career that would last for 40 years.
“I worried all the time,” said Mr. Pate’s wife of 41 years, Barbara. “He saved a lot of lives and property, but didn’t like to talk about it much.”
Family members have a grainy photograph showing Mr. Pate pulling a man from a burning truck. That would have been typical behavior, said Douglas fire Capt. Paul Goolsby, a longtime friend and colleague.
“He did a lot of firefighting in Atlanta, the Loew’s Grand, other big ones,” Capt. Goolsby said. “He really was strong on training. He did his best for us, to get us what we needed.”
Stepson Steve Daniel said Mr. Pate taught volunteer fire departments from around the state how to battle blazes, stressing the importance of safety and the need to stay calm in emergencies.
Mr. Daniel said Mr. Pate was proud to have been a paratrooper, making nine jumps in September 1946.
Dawn Pate Hawkins, Mr. Pate’s daughter, said her dad was “very dedicated about everything he did in life. And even long after they moved to Douglasville, they drove every Sunday for 30 years to the Atlanta First United Methodist Church.”
Mr. Pate kept in touch with old Atlanta friends and enjoyed serving his church, she said. He also was a ham radio enthusiast and raised many prize-winning beagles.
Mr. Pate is also survived by son Thomas D. Pate Jr., six grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
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