Wimberley Fire Rescue Captain and Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Travis Maher, 49, died Wednesday after a six-month battle with stomach cancer, according to AFD.
Maher served with the Wimberley Fire Rescue for 25 years, 23 of which he was also with AFD. A former student of Texas A&M University (Class of 1996), he served as a task force leader for Texas A&M Task Force 1, a statewide urban search and rescue team under direction of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. He started working with the Task Force in 2001.
“Travis was more than a Captain or a Battalion Chief,” the Wimberley Fire Rescue shared on their Facebook page. “He was a loving husband, father, and a role model that exemplified the characteristics of a servant leader. Travis time and time again put the needs of the community before his own.”
Maher was one of ten members that responded to ground zero from the Austin Fire Department immediately following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It was believed by his doctors that his illness was linked to his time in New York, according to the Texas Task Force Foundation.
For those who knew him, this degree of selfless service and self-sacrifice was unsurprising.
“I met Travis when he first came in to work with the Wimberley Fire Rescue,” said Chief Carroll Czichos, Wimberley Fire Rescue. “He was a clean-cut cowboy, and most of his family were firefighters in Houston. There was just something about him, and I knew, from that first day, that he was going to be good for Wimberley.”
“He started out green, like everybody else, but he had ambitions,” Czichos continued. “Shortly after he joined us, he hooked up with the Austin Fire Department. He’d come after training, and we used him every chance we could get.”
In 2004, Maher was promoted to lieutenant at the Wimberley Fire Rescue. Six years later, he became the first captain.
“When he wasn’t working in Austin, he was in Wimberley,” Czichos said. “He was really big into rescue, and after five years, he helped teach our vertical and swift water rescue classes. We went across the country together, teaching those classes.”
Thanks to his rescue expertise and his involvement with Task Force 1, Maher was instrumental in the emergency response to the Memorial Day Flood in Wimberley in 2015.
“Travis was really the one that helped get the [rescue] boats in Wimberley,” Czichos explained. “He was a big asset, and he just really stepped in and helped operations. Things started running smoothly once he was in charge.”
Czichos described Maher as a great person, someone with “the fire service in his heart.”
“The fire service as a whole lost a great man, one that was and will continue to be admired and respected,” the Fire Rescue continued on Facebook. “One [whose] impact will forever burn freely in our hearts. Your name and your legacy will forever live in our home so that all who visit know the name Travis Maher.”
“You just don’t find too many people like that anymore,” Czichos concluded. “He’s going to be missed but definitely not forgotten.”
