VANCOUVER – A woman with hoarding issues was rescued from a house fire in the Cedar Cottage area of East Vancouver Friday morning.
Firefighters pulled the woman from a second floor balcony after she jumped through a window to escape the fire that broke out around 6:15 a.m. at a house in the 3500-block of Fleming Street, said Capt. Gabe Roder, a spokesman for Vancouver Fire.
When firefighters arrived, they saw “tremendous smoke and flames coming from the home,” said Roder.
Roder said the woman was treated by paramedics for some scrapes and bruises but is otherwise OK. She was the only person in the two-storey house at the time.
As of 7:30 a.m., firefighters had put out the fire but were still dealing with some hot spots.
The woman and the building were known to the city’s Hoarding Action Response Team and counsellors were brought in to help her. The home is now uninhabitable.
Curt Isakson is a 35 year veteran of the fire service. Curt is currently a Battalion Chief for Escambia County Fire Rescue. Previously worked 9 years with the Pensacola Fire Department where he was assigned as the Company Officer on Rescue 31. Curt’s fire service experiences started at a young age as a Junior firefighter with the Midway Fire Protection District and rose through the ranks to Captain. He has worked in volunteer, career, and combination departments.
Curt has held all ranks up to Battalion Chief and been assigned to operations, training, inspections, and was Chief of Special Operations for 7 years. Curt owns and operates County Fire Tactics that covers a very diverse range of fire service topics, as well as Firefighter Rescues, a site that documents rescues made by firefighters around the country.
He has annual contracts with numerous departments to provide standardized monthly training for these departments that respond daily together under an automatic aid agreement. Curt teaches nationally to include; FDIC, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Orlando Fire Conference, Atlanta Fire Conference, Bowling Green State University, and owns/operates the annual HROC, COBC, WOTF, CFT ODP on Pensacola Beach. He is a Florida Certified Fire Officer, Instructor, Inspector, Arson, and FLUSAR.
