Longtime Channel 9 freelance photographer and Mims Volunteer Fire Department spokesman George Bortle was laid to rest Thursday morning.
Bortle, 72, died Friday at his home in Mims.
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He is survived by Cindy Bortle, his wife of 25 years, who is also a Channel 9 freelance photographer, their four children and their eight grandchildren. A Pennsylvania native, George Bortle served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and moved to Florida in 1974, when NASA hired him as a computer technician.
He served as a volunteer firefighter in Pennsylvania for five years and continued his service in Brevard County for 45 years.
Sid Champagne, Channel 9's Brevard County bureau photographer, remembered George Bortle as a talented firefighter and journalist who "feared no danger."