Running /etc/rc.firewall in the background

[Mark]

I have quite a few firewall rules (FreeBSD 4.7R). This causes the server
start-up to take several minutes extra. I wanted to have the rules loaded in
the background; like so:

firewall_script="/etc/rc.firewall &"

But, alas, that does not work. :( Is there a way to do this at all?

Thanks!

- Mark