Aurora fire captain Terry Burns, who died at age 53 on Monday, was with the city’s fire department for 28 years. He relished the job even more than singing, the only other vocation to which he aspired.
“He enjoyed singing, but it was a good thing he had a day job,” said longtime friend and fellow firefighter Tony Cito, Aurora Fire Department battalion chief.
“He was kinda famous for singing whenever we had a party, or went to a golf tournament or something, for getting up and singing songs. Everything he sang sounded just like Ethel Merman was singing it.”
Fellow firefighters throughout the department tended to feel that as a singer, Burns was an excellent firefighter.
“He was just a good fireman,” Cito said. “One of the nice things was that when Terry was on the scene, you knew things would go OK. It was comforting to see his ladder truck pull up. He always made an emergency call seem easier.”
The son of a Denver Fire Department firefighter, Burns grew up in Denver and graduated from South High School. As a University of Colorado student, Burns nearly fulfilled the undergraduate requirements to prepare for a career as an architect when he quit to become a firefighter.
When anyone teased him that his calling was inevitable, considering his surname, Burns just laughed. He rarely took umbrage. If someone teased him about his outsized nose, Burns came back with another nose joke.
During his years with the fire department, he delivered two babies, including a boy born during Burns’ shift on Thanksgiving Day.
The expectant mother went into labor while she was still in her living room. For years afterward, she and her son showed up at Aurora Station 1, where Burns and the other firefighters were waiting with a small birthday cake.
Burns adored his two daughters. He routinely brought them to the fire station throughout their childhood, gave them fire- prevention stickers and other things, and annually appeared at their schools, wearing full firefighting regalia as he pulled up in a firetruck. Earlier this year, Burns drove the firetruck to his granddaughter’s preschool, enchanting a new generation of toddlers.
His death was caused by a malignant brain tumor diagnosed in February.
Survivors include his longtime partner, Connie Askins of Aurora; parents Robert and Shirley Burns of Aurora; daughters Nikki Burns of Aurora and Kelli Suarez of Highlands Ranch; brother Gary Burns of Lakewood; sister Debby Hakar of Aurora; and three grandchildren.
A service will be held at 11 a.m. today at Mount Olive Lutheran Church, 11500 E. Iliff Ave., Aurora.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
