MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — The legacy of firefighters is service and courage, says artist Louise McDowell.

In that spirit, the Seattle artist created “Legacy,” a life-sized bronze statue the city dedicated in a ceremony in front of Snohomish County Fire District 1 Fire Station 19 on Saturday.

The statue depicts a male firefighter putting a firefighter’s hat on a little girl’s head.

“It’s about heroes, really,” McDowell said. “That firefighter was a hero for that child.”

It’s the first public art installation in the city since the piece “Sensitive Chaos” was unveiled at the city’s popular Recreation Pavilion in 1996. A bronze statue installed in 1993, “Mother Justice,” adorns the entrance to the Mountlake Terrace police station.

The $25,000 project was funded through a city program that sets aside 1 percent of the cost of building projects to pay for public art.

It is the final addition to the $2.5 million fire station, which the city dedicated in 2006.

McDowell, a Seattle artist whose publicly commissioned work also appears at Lynnwood’s Heritage Park and in Snohomish, said inspiration for the piece came from a firefighter.

“I had seen pictures of him with his daughter when his daughter was about that size,” she said. “She was following him around and doing everything that he did.”

Mountlake Terrace’s Arts Advisory Commission selected McDowell’s concept after rejecting some others.

“None of them matched anything fire department-wise for the structure,” said Steve Barnes, a fire station 19 firefighter who helped the advisory commission pick McDowell from a pool of 20 applicants.

“Her idea was the best,” said advisory commission president Judy Ryan. “We really liked her concept.”

McDowell snapped some photographs at the fire station one day as part of her research for the sculpture.

Barnes said he likely would have been McDowell’s model that day but he was on vacation.

Instead, his boss, Capt. Chuck Maddox, sat in for the photograph. Co-workers have been ribbing Maddox about that, Barnes said.

“He’s been shaking his fist at me ever since,” he said.

Oscar Halpert: 425-339-3429, ohalpert@heraldnet.com.