Rep. Curt Weldon

urt Weldon is a different kind of congressman-and he'd be the first to tell you so. "After 9/11, everyone became a homeland-security expert," he said. "But my entire career and education led me to 9/11. I grew up in a fire-service family. It is part of who I am." Weldon, who is the son and baby brother of firefighters, became fire chief and then mayor of his Pennsylvania hometown of Marcus Hook. There, he fought 25 major fires in hazardous-chemical plants, plus one caused by a 1975 oil tanker collision on the Delaware River that killed 29 people. During his first year in the House in 1987, Weldon was working late one night, when he smelled smoke; he kicked in the door of then-Speaker Jim Wright's office and found a fire raging in the kitchen. He's been kicking his way through Congress ever since.

As founder of the Congressional Fire Caucus and a member of the Armed Services Committee, Weldon was pushing federal grants and training for local firefighters, a national intelligence-sharing system, and emergency-preparedness reform for years before 9/11. His crusader's fervor for the cause is relentless, even exhausting, in formal hearings and personal conversations alike. (In one 1998 interview on terror threats with a National Journal reporter, Weldon talked rapid-fire for more than an hour.)

But this fervor has made him the unchallenged champion of his fellow fire chiefs. Many members of Congress are "very, very helpful" to the fire service, said Alan Caldwell, director of government relations for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. But as for Weldon, "he just stands head and shoulders above all others." Weldon, 56, is a graduate of West Chester State College in Pennsylvania and a former teacher.