Tuscaloosa firefighters rescued a 59-year-old woman from a house fire on Short 17th Street on Friday morning.
The Tuscaloosa Fire Rescue Service and Tuscaloosa Police Department responded to the fire around 7:20 a.m. and were told one person was still trapped inside.
Jacquelyn Stevenson was inside the home alone, but firefighters were able to find her and bring her out. The house was already “partially involved” with the fire at the time.
Stevenson has been taken to DCH with life-threatening injuries. One of her friends spoke about what she saw at the scene.
“My mother called me and told me she thought that my friend’s house was engulfed in flames. And I got dressed and I had to come over and when I started over they told me they pulled her out and that she was unresponsive,” Gwendolyn Jordan Sudduth said.
Witnesses say they attempted to get into the house when they saw the flames at about 7:30 a.m. but were unsuccessful.
Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire.
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.
