MOUNT VERNON – Yonkers firefighters are being hailed for rescuing a 49-year-old woman from a burning building in Mount Vernon Tuesday while Mount Vernon firefighters were battling another blaze.
“They did a helluva job,” Mount Vernon Fire Chief Edward Stevenson told The Journal News. “They saved this woman’s life.
“We had no one to respond to that fire,” Stevenson said.
Yonkers firefighters pulled an unconscious Angel Diaz from an apartment at 471 S. Fifth Ave., Stevenson said. Diaz was at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx and is expected to survive.
Mount Vernon firefighters were all busy fighting a fire at 369 S. Seventh Ave. that destroyed a home where six people lived.
Yonkers relocated Engine 313, Ladder 70 and Battalion 2 to Mount Vernon under the county mutual aid system to help cover the rest of Mount Vernon, Yonkers Deputy Fire Chief Thomas F. Fitzpatrick Jr. said. At 11:49 a.m. firefighters were dispatched to the South Fifth Avenue fire, in a three-story apartment building.
Firefighters found the second floor engulfed in flames and extinguished the fire. They found Diaz unconscious, and she was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center.
That fire displaced 11 adults, nine children and a baby.
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.
