The Ogden Fire Department mourned Wednesday its first female fire captain who was killed in a freak accident as she drove home from work.
Amy Armstrong, 33, died about 10 a.m. Tuesday when a large dead cottonwood tree crushed the cab of her truck as she drove up Ogden Canyon to her home near Huntsville.A crew of two men and a boy were removing the tree from private property on the north side of the road, about a mile west of Pineview Dam, when the tree fell on the truck, said Weber County Sheriff's Sgt. Klint Anderson.
Armstrong was crushed by the tree and pronounced dead at the scene.
"It's been a very solemn day for everybody here (at the department)," Battalion Chief Dave Owens, Armstrong's supervisor, said Tuesday night. "She was the most driven person I ever knew. Whenever she did anything, she did it to the best of her ability."
Armstrong will best be remembered by family and friends for her enthusiastic nature and love for the outdoors. Although in the annals of Ogden's history she will be known as the city's first female fire-fighter and fire captain, it was not a distinction she necessarily sought.
"The thing about Amy, she always did her own thing," said her father, Ward Armstrong.
So, he wasn't too surprised when his youngest of five children followed her brother-in-law's suggestion and applied for the fire department about eight years ago, a few years after earning a ceramics degree from Utah State University. Her enthusiasm and positive attitude impressed her bosses.
"She didn't like to be called a female firefighter. She wanted to be a firefighter," said Owens, who also considered Armstrong "a friend."
Perhaps it was the same attitude that drove her to join the Ski Patrol and the Urban Search and Rescue team, and to become a Community Emergency Response team instructor. Last year, she was awarded the Youth Community Con-nection's outstanding performance in a nontraditional role award.
"She went into firefighting because she liked the challenge," Ward Armstrong said.
It's a challenge she apparently met well. Armstrong was promoted to fire captain about a month ago.
"She did everything on the same level as men - or better," Owens said.
And her peers respected her, said her friend and fellow fire captain Ted Korgenski. "She was one of our pioneers . . . a mentor for a lot of people."
Many at the fire department will remember the whitewater rafting trips Armstrong hosted after buying her own raft five years ago. She usually took 20 to 25 people, including her parents, Ward Armstrong said. Another trip was planned for next week.
"She enjoyed her work as much as she enjoyed her play. So therefore, she went after it with the same zest," Owens said.