A veteran Boston firefighter died Saturday night after falling from a third-story window while battling a three-alarm house fire in Dorchester, a loss that sent shock through a department that had already seen him save lives earlier in the day. Robert Kilduff Jr., 53, was fighting the blaze at 18 Treadway Road when he suffered severe injuries and was rushed to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Fire officials said Kilduff had been working inside the home when he fell as crews tried to extinguish the fire, which broke out around 8 p.m. with five residents inside. By 8:15, heavy fire was reported at the house, and by 8:32 p.m. firefighters said it had been knocked down enough for aggressive interior and exterior attacks to continue. The fire spread through all three floors and burned through the roof, forcing crews to use multiple ground and aerial ladders to keep flames from reaching nearby homes.
Kilduff was a 24-year veteran of the Boston Fire Department assigned to Rescue Company 2 and was the first Boston firefighter to die in the line of duty in more than a decade. He lived in West Roxbury, was a U.S. Marine veteran, a father of two and a third-generation firefighter. Earlier on Saturday, he rescued someone during a train incident. Over a month ago, he helped save the life of a fellow firefighter who suffered cardiac arrest while battling another fire, accompanying him to the hospital and performing CPR.
Boston Fire Commissioner Rodney Marshall described Kilduff as a firefighter’s firefighter and said the loss would stay with the department for a long time. He also said there is no routine fire and no routine call, and that firefighters are never truly safe until they get home. Union leader Sam Dillon said Local 718 lost one of its best, calling Kilduff a friend, a brother and a dedicated family man. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Kilduff came from a family of firefighters and held the calling as the highest duty to serve and protect, adding that because of his actions, every resident came out of the flames safe and sound.
The fire left a city mourning one of its most respected firefighters, but it also underlined the daily risk that comes with work many people never see up close. For Boston, the immediate question now is not whether Kilduff gave everything to the job. It is how a firefighter who had spent the day saving others became the department’s latest line-of-duty death just hours later.
