Disney World Honors Fireman around the World

I am sure that many of you have seen the Fire Hall there to the right as you enter Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. The Fire Hall is located to the right of City Hall and across the street from the Barber Shop. The building has many items for sale related to the fire and police services. The items I have seen are tee shirts, holiday ornaments, coffee cups, trading pins, dog toys, etc. My husband is a firefighter and I often travel to Disney World without him and this seems to be the location where I typically pick him up a souvenir before heading home.

As many of you remember, the Fire Hall is very important at Disneyland in that it was the home to Walt Disney's personal apartment.  As legend has it, when Walt was working at his apartment the lamp located above the "Fire Dept." sign would be on.  As a tribute to Walt, the light remains on. 

If you look at this photo carefully, you will see that the light at the Disneyland Fire Hall is on:)  What you will not find at Disneyland's Fire Hall is the merchandise that was available in the Disney World location. You instead find a heavily themed Fire Hall adorned with older fire equipment. 

Back in Orlando, the Fire Hall includes some theming as well.  Enough theming that the average person not looking to purchase fire and police related merchandise would want to stop in for a look.  My favorite part of this theming can be found on the walls.  Disney World invites people from all over the country to bring their local Fire Department patches to donate.  In return for the donation, the cast member adds the patch to the walls.  After several trips to Disney World, my husband remembered to bring his patches for the county and city he works for.  We added the patches to the wall as seen here:

My husband's patches are the two all the way to the right, middle row.  What we found to be nice was that this display of patches was located right by the register!  I mean, everyone will be seeing them, right!!!  He donated these patches in February 2010. We were told that they would remain there for several weeks and then would be rotated out as new ones were brought in.  I returned to Disney World in May 2010 and they remained on the wall.  I was excited.  But when I returned in July 2010 and they were STILL there, I was amazed!  I felt like my husband was still there in the parks with me:) 

So for all of you that are firefighters, this is really a neat thing to participate in!  Thanks for all you do firefighters!