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For years, whenever a fire engine roared past, Andrew Brokes would scream, “Go get ‘em, boys! Wooooo!”
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His cousin Katie Brokes thought this habit stupid at first. But through Andrew, she learned the deep bond firefighters share, the unspoken connection between people who run into burning buildings instead of out.
“It’s never been anything but second nature for him to help out somebody he didn’t know,” Katie Brokes said Friday. “Andrew, from a very young age, was a people person — the kind of person who when he entered a room, he lit it up, because he cared about every single person in that room.”
Brokes, 24, died Thursday fighting an early-morning blaze with the Durham Fire Department, searching for victims inside a building when the roof collapsed.
Gov. Josh Stein announced flags will be flown at half-staff in his honor. “May his memory be a blessing,” Stein said.
To his family, Brokes possessed an almost instinctive desire to help people — never a complaint, never any hesitation.
He and Katie Brokes had a goal of hiking each national park together, and she joked that he wore the same glued-together boots for a decade, never feeling discomfort.
They tackled the Grand Canyon six months after Katie Brokes had knee surgery, on the climb back out, her knee started burning and her feet ached from calluses.
“It just got to a point that he picked me up,” she said, “and he carried me up the Grand Canyon. And you know what? I was complaining much more than he did.”
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In his senior year of high school, Brokes wasn’t sure where to go next, what career to pursue, what kind of life to lead and where to apply this drive to make the world better.
But he took a trip to the Elon Fire Department, and the decision came clear. He would be a firefighter, just like his grandfather — and his grandmother — in Maryland.
Brokes was so certain and driven that he finished his high school classes in one semester, enrolling in the fire academy and launching the career he felt born for.
“Andrew is one of those guys who, if he had a choice of getting out of the way or pushing somebody out of the way, he’s going to push somebody out of the way,” his father, Christopher, told The N&O Friday. “He stood up to bullies. That’s just the way he was.”
News of Brokes’ death struck people who barely knew him.
“I had the privilege of meeting him Saturday,” Brandon Guy said in a social media post. “We were at a horse show, and it was a little chilly. He offered to let me wear his firefighter beanie to keep my head warm. I only knew him for six days, but I do know he was a good man.”
Brokes knew the everyday risks in his job. But he never spoke of them.
“I never got the impression he felt like every time he got on the truck it could be his last time,” said his cousin Katie. “It was more like, every time he gets on the truck, he’s going to go help someone, and it’s going to be OK. Maybe it’s because he didn’t want his loved ones to worry about him.”
“He was always my hero,” she added in an Instagram post, “and I’m grateful that the world now knows him as one, too.”
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This story was originally published October 9, 2026 at 12:40 PM.