WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Actor and comedian Denis Leary is scheduled to attend a ceremony in his hometown to mark the 20th anniversary of a warehouse fire that took the lives of six Massachusetts firefighters.

The Telegram & Gazette reports that according to a city spokesman, the Worcester native is among thousands of firefighters and civilians expected at the ceremony Tuesday to remember the firefighters lost in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. blaze on Dec. 3, 1999.

Lt. Thomas Spencer, Lt. James Lyons, and firefighters Paul Brotherton, Timothy Jackson, Jeremiah Lucey and Joseph McGuirk lost their lives looking for homeless people believed to be inside the vacant warehouse.


Lucey was Leary’s cousin, and Spencer was a childhood friend.

Leary became an advocate for firefighter safety after the blaze.