Jeremy Bourasa knew he had to answer the call of action — even if it meant leaving his wedding party

Firefighter Ditches His Wedding — to Battle a Blaze! 'That Why I Married Him,' Says Bride

When the fire alarms sounded just after Jeremy Bourasa’s wedding ceremony, his bride, Krista, knew her hero husband would answer the call.

Jeremy, an on-call firefighter from Cottage Grove, Minnesota, raced from his wedding to battle a devastating house fire on September 1, just as the newlywed couple was taking pictures following their ceremony — which, after some problems with their original venue, took place at the fire station in St. Paul Park where Jeremy volunteers.

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“At first I looked at him like, ‘No, don’t even think about it,’ and he wasn’t going to think about it,” Krista, 32, tells PEOPLE. “But then, we were taking a couple more pictures and I could actually hear how bad the fire was. It was the city next to us that needed help, so it was an ‘all-call,’ where they call for extra men.”

With the fire worsening, Krista turned to Jeremy, 39, to let him know he could leave with her blessing.

“I just kind of was like, ‘Oh, gosh.’ So I just looked over at him and I said, ‘Just go ahead and go. Just go,’ ” Krista recalls. “I could just see the look in his eyes when I turned to him, he was kind of torn, thinking of his family, and of the people in need of help.”

Image zoom Jeremy and Krista Bourasa December Orpen

Image zoom St. Paul Park Fire Station December Orpen

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When Jeremy left in the firetruck, wedding photographer December Orpen snapped pictures of his departure.

As Krista and the rests of the guests headed to the reception to await his return, Jeremy helped to extinguish a powerful blaze that decimated a home.

“Jeremy’s super, super dedicated, so he’s always going to every call he can go to,” Krista says. “He also works as a mortgage loan processor, so he does that full-time. But there are times where he’ll leave and go to a fire or a call. It happens at least a couple of times a month.”

One of the reasons Jeremy signed up to become a firefighter was due to the devastating losses that Krista had experienced.

“I lost my niece and nephew in a house fire two years ago,” she says. Then, three years ago, my sister’s home burned down too — this was before Jeremy became a firefighter, and it was after that happened that he said, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m going do it.’ Then he went down and applied.”

Image zoom Jeremy and Krista Bourasa December Orpen

While it took a few hours for Jeremy and his bride to be reunited, Krista says she couldn’t have asked for a better day — it only cemented the many reasons why Jeremy is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.