The Medal of Valor that Groves Fire Chief Dale Jackson gave to two firefighters this week may have been a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Jackson’s been chief in the Jefferson County city since 1989, and he has never approved the medals before. In fact, he’s been a firefighter for 42 years, and said they’ve never been bestowed on anyone else in the department in that time.

“It’s rare,” he said. True enough.

What Josh Hidalgo and Darron Marsh and fellow first-responders accomplished on the night of May 16 in the 3200 block of Allison Avenue was rare, too. The two firefighters entered a burning one-story, wooden structure, located a 12-year-old, handicapped child — he could neither speak nor escape on his own — and carried him to safety, some 20 seconds before the house, fully involved in flames, collapsed.

“A lot of times when we go out it’s for recovery, not for a rescue,” Jackson said this week. “We were fortunate to actually rescue the child.”

Here’s how perilous the situation was: Jackson said the call came around 10:15 p.m. that the house was in flames and only one of two children inside had escaped. Police arrived first but the fire trucks were there within three minutes.

Police tried to enter through a window, but were thwarted by burglar bars. An assistant fire chief tried to work the fire down so Hidalgo and March could enter the house.

Firefighters spent some five minutes inside, navigating unfamiliar interior and battling smoke to find a child who couldn’t speak. They had a single radio contact with the outside, then turned down their radio to listen for the child.

While they searched, the commander at the scene called off the search; he knew the house would collapse, but the firefighters could not hear him. They located the child and exited seconds before its collapse.

Jackson said a rescue team had been called to save the firefighters themselves. A horn was about to sound to clear the building.

“It was a team effort, from the dispatchers to officers who arrived first to my fire crew that got there and performed the rescue,” Jackson said. “We kind of had a perfect storm happen. Everything worked in our favor.

“Had any one little thing gone wrong, it could have been different.”

Here are a couple of things that might have gone wrong: While firefighters searched for the child, ammunition was going off in the garage and a propane tank was venting.

Groves first-responders and dispatchers proved in abundance their skill, teamwork and courage that night. They richly deserve the plaudits their chief gave them this week at City Hall. They deserve their city’s thanks.

We know of one child who’d surely agree.