Mourning the death of Clem Kurhajetz, once the soul of the Falcon Heights Fire Department

By Bill Brady

One bright summer day in the early ‘oughts, I cut up my leg with a chain saw in my backyard.

I’ll spare you the details, except to say that my next-door neighbor saved my leg and quite possibly my life by quickly applying a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood till the ambulance arrived.

I was very lucky that my neighbor happened to be the volunteer Fire Chief of Falcon Heights—Clem Kurhajetz.

But I wasn’t the only lucky one. All the citizens of Falcon Heights and Lauderdale were darn lucky for Clem’s 30-plus years of service, from the 1980s till his retirement in 2014.

Clem passed away on Jan. 4 at the age of 76, leaving behind a wife, two children, three grandchildren, two beloved dogs and a wealth of memories from fellow firefighters who served under or alongside him over the years.

He looked the part

Clem was, as one colleague put it, “the stereotypical fire chief, complete with a handlebar mustache, rough exterior and an abrasive personality.” He fought for his people, making sure they got access to the best training, state-of-the-art safety equipment and the budget to do their job the right way.

He held strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them, whether the audience was the city council or his own colleagues.

“Yep, we’ve all been disciplined by him, and we’ve all been praised by him,” remembered Kevin Anderson, who worked with and for Clem over 33 years.

Greg Peterson, a onetime Falcon Heights firefighter who is now fire chief in White Bear Lake, added, “Clem could be a very feisty, passionate, fired up guy at times. At other times he could be very kind and very supportive. There was a lot of depth to his character. And yes, most of us would describe him as a character.”

Clem may have been a character, but one who was “a lot softer on the inside than he appeared on the outside,” said Jan, his wife of 48 years.

That may be why his fellow firefighters kept reelecting him as chief, year after year for two decades. “Every year he would tell me, ‘I’m not going to do it this year,’” Jan recalled. “Then he’d come home from the meeting and say, ‘Well, I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back they had voted me in again!’”

Clem kept getting re-elected because his colleagues respected him, and they knew that he respected them. He proved it every Saturday morning, when he went over to the fire house to drink coffee, rehash the week’s calls and strike up conversations with whoever stopped by—not just other firefighters, but often police officers, city employees and the occasional neighbor.

“It was his unofficial open-door policy,” Anderson said. “Anybody could come. I still miss those days.”

“My chief really surprised me”

Perhaps no one was more posi­tively affected by Clem’s common-­sense, no-BS approach to his job than Dan Johnson-Powers, onetime Falcon Heights firefighter, current Brooklyn Park Emergency Management coordinator and a man who happens to be gay.

A decade ago, when Minnesotans were asked to vote on a constitutional amendment to essentially outlaw gay marriage, Johnson-Powers made the extraordinary decision to “come out” in a meeting of the firefighters. In a letter to the editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press at the time, he records their reaction:

“Some didn’t react at all; others acknowledged it must have been tough to speak those words. Many shook my hand; one even hugged me.

“My chief really surprised me, though. When I finished talking, he spoke up, before anyone else had a chance. He said, ‘Dan, even before tonight, I had every intention of voting no. It isn’t right for the government to say who you can or can’t marry.’

“Those words went a long way to assuage my fears … If a grouchy old fire chief can find it in his heart to ensure all of his firefighters are treated the same, then I have to believe that Minnesota can also vote no this fall.” (Which it did, by a margin of about 53% to 47%.)

Clem, you will be missed. By your family, by your friends, by the firefighting fraternity that loved you as their advocate and mentor, and most certainly by your next-door neighbor whose ineptitude with power tools brought out the best in you one day many years ago.

RIP, my friend. 

Bill Brady is the Park Bugle copy editor.

Photo cutlines:

Clem Kurhajetz. Submitted photo.

Clem Kurhajetz, left, with firefighter Nick Bauman, Photo courtesy Kevin Anderson.