An off duty Leavenworth (KS) FD Driver/Operator sustained serious burns while attempting to rescue his 5 year old daughter from their own house fire last night around 1700 hours. The FF was at home and of course was not wearing any PPE. I was personally in Leavenworth last week and FF Mark Jacobson was on the shift that was on duty and present in the program. FF Jacobson's 5 year old Daughter was killed in this tragic fire.
 
Mark's son (13), along with Mark and his wife were transported to the hospital and are recovering. Another daughter (8) escaped with minor injuries and is being cared for by family members. The family was at home at the time of the fire. LFD Driver/Operator Mark Jacobson smelled smoke and investigated. He found an upstairs bedroom charged with smoke and made several attempts to search the room but was unable to find her. The fire at this point had taken off and he continued to search for his child but was unable to. Members of Leavenworth County Fire District # 1 with mutual aid from the City of Leavenworth FD were quickly able to extinguish the fire. After extinguishing the fire they did find Brother Jacobsons daughter in the bedroom.  The home did have working smoke detectors in the hallways but the child's room door was closed when the fire started. Our hearts and deepest prayers go out to the family and the members of both LCFD 1 and especially the LFD during this horrible time.

 
AND IN WARWICK, RHODE ISLAND...On Arrival: Nothing Showing-Final Result-5 Killed.
 
Fire Investigators are picking through a Rhode Island house trying to figure out how a sleep over weekend for a group of former star athletes turned into the state’s deadliest fire since The Station nightclub burned in 2003. Among the 5 killed in this fire on Saturday was the Son of an area Fire Chief. While companies initially arrived with nothing showing, upon further investigation there was a fire upstairs that may have been smoldering for hours. There were no smoke detectors upstairs.

State Fire Marshal John E. Chartier said all indications are that the fire Saturday morning that killed four adults and a seven-month-old baby was an accident, but he was awaiting results from the state’s crime lab before saying it for sure. None of the dead was older than 24, a fact that made the loss of life particularly hard for firefighters to take. Investigators found one working smoke alarm in the house, but it was in the basement, where the smoke never reached.

Among those killed in the fire was Nicholas M. Jillson, 24, of North Smithfield. A fifth adult, Neil S. Leardi, 21, of Whitinsville, Mass., got out of the house and called 911. He was hospitalized after the fire. Besides his hockey fame, Jillson was the son of North Smithfield Fire Chief Joel Jillson.
 
The group had apparently been socializing at the house until about 0300 hours when they went to bed. Leardi told investigators he had slept on the first floor, the others on the second. He initially woke up at about 7 a.m. Saturday, but noticed nothing unusual and went back to sleep. He awoke again around noon to see part of the ceiling fall down. Unable to get upstairs to help the others, he called 911. When WFD Firefighters arrived at 1213 hours, there was no smoke or fire visible, no sign that anything was out of the ordinary-initially. But when they tried to go up to the second floor, they were met by a wall of smoke and flames above.

It took about 15 minutes to bring the fire under control, but by then it had been burning for so long that the second floor was severely damaged by fire and full of smoke. One of the adults was found on a floor near a door and another person was half out of bed. The fire appeared to have started in the space between the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the second story. Our condolences, especially to Chief Jillson and his family, and all affected by this horrible fire.