Adam Finseth’s firefighting gear still hangs in his locker at the Burnsville fire station where he worked.

Feb. 18 was supposed to be a day off for Finseth, 40. But as one of his department’s two SWAT medics, he didn’t hesitate when he was called to respond to a standoff at a home in Burnsville.

“He showed his commitment and unwavering dedication when he responded … in the middle of the night because seven children were at risk,” Burnsville Fire Chief BJ Jungmann said recently, as he named Finseth the department’s Firefighter of the Year. “His bravery and heroism to risk his own life to aid officers who were down are nothing but awe-inspiring.”

The man in the standoff started shooting at officers without warning as they negotiated with him to surrender because there were children in the house. When Finseth tried to provide an officer with medical aid, the man also shot him. Finseth died, as did Burnsville officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge.

A photo of slain Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth adorns the wall at Burnsville Fire Station No. 1 on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. Finseth will be among those honored at the Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul on Sept. 29. Finseth, 40, along with Burnsville police officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, were shot and killed in the line of duty in Burnsville on Feb. 18, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“This has been the worst thing we have been through as a department, a city and a community,” Jungmann said.

Finseth’s Burnsville colleagues and firefighters from around the state will memorialize him on Sunday during the Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service, which is held annually. Elmstrand and Ruge, who were both 27, were honored during National Police Week in May.

In the seven months that Finseth’s co-workers and friends at the Burnsville Fire Department have been working without him, they find “little reminders throughout the day” of him, said Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Tony D’Agostino.

In addition to Finseth’s gear at Station No. 2 on Parkwood Drive, firefighters sometimes come across his signature on paperwork.

“There are times we realize that this is still a wound and it hasn’t scarred over yet, and we are going to carry that weight for a long time,” D’Agostino said.

Family was everything

Burnsville firefighters, from left, Assistant Chief Terry Ritchie, Assistant Chief Neal Dwyer, firefighter/paramedic Tony D’Agostino, firefighter/paramedic Justin Gibbish and Fire Chief BJ Jungmann at Burnsville Fire Station No. 1 on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. The men shared remembrances of Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, who will be among those honored at the Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul on Sunday, Sept. 29. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On Finseth’s first day of work as a Burnsville firefighter in 2019, he warmly greeted firefighter Justin Gibbish.

Finseth had been a firefighter in the neighboring community of Savage, so Gibbish knew him in passing, but he was surprised to hear Finseth call him by his nickname, saying, “Hey, Gibby, how you doing? How have you been?”

“He acted like we’d been friends for years, right from the get-go,” said Gibbish, a fire motor operator/paramedic.

That sums up who Finseth was: “a cheery, upbeat guy. You felt like you knew him forever as soon as you met him,” Gibbish recalled.

Finseth was married; his wife is Tara and they had two children. “We lost somebody that was close … but they lost … their everything,” said Assistant Chief Neal Dwyer.

When Finseth chatted with other firefighters, he always checked in first about their families.

“The No. 1 question he had when he saw you was, ‘How is your family?’” said Assistant Chief Terry Ritchie.

Finseth had a knack for remembering the names of wives and kids. And he wasn’t just asking about them to be polite, D’Agostino said.

“It wasn’t lip service when he was asking about how your family was — he was going to remember it, even if you didn’t see him for another month,” he said. “He was going to remember: ‘Oh, your daughter had a dance recital. How was that?’ He genuinely invested in his conversations with people, wanted to really know who you were.”

Before Finseth’s first day at the Burnsville department, he came in to get sized for gear and brought his children, Liam and Nora, with him.

“You could see the family dynamic that they had and the closeness and how much he cared for his kids,” Dwyer said.

Outside of work, Finseth coached his children’s sports teams. He was an avid outdoorsman, including fishing, pheasant hunting and raising chickens in his yard. “Anytime he could get up to the Boundary Waters camping, he loved doing that with his family,” Gibbish said.

Military background made him calm leader

Finseth spent five years as a Burnsville firefighter, though “it felt like he’d been here a long time, based on the impact he had,” Jungmann said. In addition to his experience as a Savage firefighter, he’d also worked in the same role in Hastings.

In Burnsville, he applied to be one of the department’s SWAT medics, who work with the Burnsville Police Department, and he “passed everything with flying colors,” said Gibbish, who was already a SWAT medic and worked with Finseth in that role.

Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Justin Gibbish talks about slain Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“Having seen combat, the tactical environment was definitely nothing new to him, so he fit right in,” Gibbish said.

Finseth joined the Army shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. He completed two tours of duty in Iraq, reaching the rank of staff sergeant and becoming a squad leader. He was awarded multiple medals for his service.

In times of stress, Finseth was even-keeled. “Very calm in the storm,” D’Agostino said.

“A whole house could be on fire in front of us and he’s going to (calmly say), ‘How are you doing? By the way, I need help with this’” hose, D’Agostino remembered. That was his outward appearance, but inwardly “he was constantly processing everything.”

Ritchie said he never saw Finseth flustered, and he thinks that came from his military experience. His leadership in the military also came through in the fire department.

“He was a natural, kind of informal leader,” D’Agostino said. “If he spoke up or had a question, guys would listen to him.”

His leadership especially showed in his workouts — he would push fellow firefighters “to do better, being an example by pushing himself to do better as well,” D’Agostino said. Finseth enjoyed long-distance running and rucking, which is walking with a weighted backpack and based on military training workouts.

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“You could (respond to) eight calls before lunch, want to take a break and have no energy to want to work out, and he would find a way to say, ‘Come on, it’ll be easy,’” D’Agostino said. “By the end of it, you spent an hour and a half in the gym (at the fire station), and you’re dripping sweat, but it was a big, bad workout, and you just feel better for doing it. And he’s sitting there in the trenches with you, dripping sweat and smiling and saying, ‘Don’t you feel better now?’”

Finseth took an active role in the department’s health and wellness committee. He was starting to set up a program to have firefighters work with a physical therapist to prevent injuries, which the committee is continuing to work on.

Finseth was also a lead water-rescue swim trainer for the department.

“Talking to some of our folks that aren’t the greatest swimmers, Adam was a great resource to help them feel comfortable in the water,” Jungmann said. “You felt safe when he was around and training you. He would build confidence in people quietly. He was the quiet guy that, when he speaks, you listen to him.”

Grief, community support

After the deadly standoff, the Dakota County Attorney’s Office reviewed the case and determined three Burnsville officers were justified in firing their weapons. The suspect, Shannon Gooden, died by suicide, according to the medical examiner’s office.

A summary in the prosecutor’s memo said that after Gooden shot Elmstrand, the officer was brought outside the home to a SWAT vehicle and Finseth was providing him with medical care.

Officer Ruge approached Gibbish and told him he’d been shot. Gibbish checked Ruge and determined a bullet had hit his ballistic vest. Gibbish turned to check on Elmstrand and Gooden started firing from an upper window of the home, shooting Ruge and Finseth.

For nearly two weeks after, firefighters from other departments handled all the Burnsville Fire Department’s calls for them.

“That allowed us time to support and grieve together,” Jungmann said.

Burnsville Fire Chief BJ Jungmann. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The fire department already had an embedded mental health professional who worked with Burnsville firefighters 24 hours a month. They increased his work, so he’s now at the department’s two stations for 20 hours a week.

“He had established relationships with all of us, and knew all of us from one-on-one check-ins and just being around the station,” Jungmann said. “He’s able to pick out from a mile away when anyone of us is ‘off’ or ‘stuck’ and helping us through that, and just being a great ear and helping us navigate it.”

The support they’ve felt from the community has been meaningful. Since time has passed, people seem to have grown more comfortable with asking Burnsville firefighters how they’re doing, Ritchie said.

“In my career as a firefighter, when I walked out the door in the morning … we always kind of took for granted, ‘It’s a dangerous job,’ … but you never really thought of it that way, as in, ‘I might not come home,’” Ritchie said. “This changed my opinion and look on that drastically. So, when I leave in the morning, when I say ‘I love you’ to my wife and my kids, it has made you open your eyes that it could happen.”

Jungmann recently recognized Gibbish and Finseth, posthumously, with the department’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, for their actions on Feb. 18. Gibbish, who was also called into work on his day off for the standoff, is still a SWAT medic. “I wanted to honor Adam by continuing in that role,” he said.

The Burnsville Fire Department has a peer-nominated process to select its Firefighter of the Year, and the nominations were unanimously for Finseth, according to Jungmann.

Finseth’s widow and their children attended the recent award ceremony, and Tara Finseth put an arm around each of her children as they held their father’s awards. People on stage with the family embraced them.

“We are committed to the long-term support of his family,” Jungmann said later.

They’ll be with Finseth’s family as his name is unveiled on the Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial on the state Capitol grounds Sunday. The names of four other firefighters whose deaths were classified as line-of-duty — two from recent years and two from the early 1900s — were also added to the memorial this year and will also be honored, said Jay Wood, Minnesota Fire Service Foundation president.

As far as the foundation can tell from its records, Finseth is the only Minnesota firefighter who was murdered in the line of duty.

“We encourage the public to show up and show support to these families of firefighters that have paid the ultimate price,” Wood said of Sunday’s service.

Jungmann said they’ll never forget what happened to Finseth and their grief is still too new, but they want to get to a place of deciding: “How do we honor Adam and and carry on his legacy?”

Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service

The service is open to the public.

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When: Sunday, Sept. 29. Reading of the honor roll at 11:45 a.m. Processional begins at 12:40 p.m. Memorial service starts at 1 p.m.

Where: Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul.

Donations: The Burnsville Police and Fire Foundation is accepting donations at burnsvillepoliceandfirefoundation.org for officers and firefighters to travel next year when officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge’s names are added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C., and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth’s name is added to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Maryland.

People can donate to the officers’ or firefighter’s families through the Law Enforcement Labor Services Benevolent Fund and should note “Burnsville” if they do so online at lels.org/benevolent-fund.