Karl Baker, Esteban Parra, and Xerxes Wilson

The News Journal

Two firefighters were killed in a Canby Park rowhouse blaze early Saturday.

The fire was in the 1900 block of Lakeview Road.

The last death of a Wilmington firefighter was 18 years ago.

Two longtime firefighters were killed when a floor in a Canby Park rowhouse gave way in an intense fire early Saturday, injuring four others in what Chief Anthony Goode called "a very tragic day for the Wilmington Fire Department." The incident is the first death of a city firefighter in almost two decades.

Lt. Christopher Leach, 41, a 14-year veteran, and Senior Firefighter Jerry Fickes, 51, a 13-year veteran, died in the fire. Both men had children and families, Goode said at a press conference Saturday.

Firefighters Ardythe Hope and Brad Speakman were transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pennsylvania, and were in critical but stable condition Saturday evening.

Two other injured firefighters, Terrance Tate and John Cawthray, were treated at Christiana Hospital and discharged Saturday afternoon.

Cawthray thanked well-wishers on Facebook, and noted Leach and Fickes "paid the ultimate sacrifice."

"I was lucky, I came away with only 2nd degree burns on my wrist and hand," he said. "I truly loved both of them and they will be missed. Keep their families in mind."

The fire was reported 2:54 a.m. at 1927 Lakeview Road, in a neighborhood of brick rowhouses about a block south of South Union Street. Firefighters arrived to find flames shooting out of windows and doorways.

Remembrances for Wilmington firefighters killed

Information sought: Wilmington line of duty deaths

"It was a huge pile of fire coming out of the front door," said a neighbor who goes by Ed and declined to provide his last name. "I said to myself, 'How the hell are (firefighters) going to get in there.'"

According to the Fire Department, one or more firefighters became trapped at 3:14 a.m. and radioed for help. Dozens of firefighters responded and searched, officials said. They also used ladders to access the upper story of the rowhouse, where the fire shot through the roof and sent flames and thick smoke into the night sky.

Fire Department Battalion Chief James Jobes said firefighters were working on the first floor when it collapsed, trapping them in the basement. Their bodies were removed and taken to the state medical examiner's office in downtown Wilmington by a motorcade that was saluted by emergency personnel lining the streets.

"This is a tragic situation," said Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams. "My heart is heavy. So much pain right now."

The residents of the home were able to escape.

Missy Napier lived in the home with her five children, all between 10 and 17 years old. Another child, a family friend, was staying with the family. When she first noticed smoke, she scrambled to get all of the kids out of the home, she said.

"We started hollering, 'Get out of the house get out of the house,'" she said between tears Saturday morning. "We ran out back but the smoke was so hot. Not the fire, but the smoke was burning your face."

Napier's mother, Debbie Napier, suspects firefighters thought someone was trapped, "but everybody got out."

"It's breaking her heart that they passed away in her house," she said.

Debbie Napier called her son, Tom Roth, as the fire raged. He arrived outside of his sister's house to find tall flames. By the afternoon, Roth, still stunned, sat in a folding chair a block away from the home alongside an ambulance.

He said the family had been celebrating the beginning of the weekend when the fire started. At first, they didn’t realize its magnitude, he said.

“The adults were doing what adults do on a Friday night, listening to music having a couple of beers. Some of the kids were out riding their bikes right here,” Roth said. “The smoke hit them just dead in the face.”

Neighbors on Saturday comforted one another on the narrow one-way street, developed as part of the Canby Park Estates subdivision 70 years ago. The side-by-side homes take up the entire block from Rodman Road to South Union Street, with an alley behind it.

New Castle County property records show 1927 Lakeview Road was built in 1944. The 1,075-square-foot property had three bedrooms.

Shane Henry, who lives with his fiancé in the basement of a row house next to the Napier home, said smoke enveloped the surrounding houses.

“Out of nowhere, we saw a black cloud of smoke pour down into our room,” Henry said. “We thought it was maybe our roommates, maybe they left a cigarette still lit. But it was pouring too much, we knew something was wrong."

Henry and his fiancé , unable to go home because of fire damage, now have nowhere to sleep, he said.

At about the same time that Henry noticed the fire, another neighbor, Johnny Alvarado, saw Napier’s children running down Lakeview Road away from the burning home.

“First, you see the black smoke going up, then flames,” he said. “Smoke flooded the streets.”

Alvarado began knocking on neighbors' doors telling them to get away in case the blaze were to spread. He wasn’t the only neighbor to jump into action.

Claudia Leon lives across the street from the Napier home and awoke to a woman banging on her front door in the early hours of the morning.

“She came to the door yelling, ‘Everybody get out — a fire broke out,” Leon said.

More than 12 hours after Leon had been warned of the blaze, the smell of smoke remained in the air along the block and a puddle of standing water that had flowed off of Napier's property rested at the intersection of Lakeview and Rodman Roads.

Multiple neighbors chatted in front of homes as they peered toward the exterior of the charred, brick rowhouse and its yard, enclosed by a chain link fence. An extension ladder still rested against the front of the home, reaching just below the top floor window.

The Office of the State Fire Marshal and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the cause. The federal agency is participating because Wilmington fire officials decided to exclude themselves from the investigation, Jobes said. He said they are exploring all possibilities and foul play has not been ruled out, but he could not discuss specifics.

Leach was assigned to Ladder Co. 2. Fickes was at Squad 4 and was a member and past assistant chief at Aetna Hose, Hook & Ladder Co. in Newark.

Vice President Joe Biden visited the scene of the fire and flags were also flown at half-staff at Wilmington fire stations, which were adorned with black bunting. At Fire Station No. 6 on North Union Street near the fire, a neighbor around 1 p.m. dropped off two pizzas to show her support for the department.

"It's tragic," said the woman, who declined to give her name. "They're part of our neighborhood."

In Hockessin, the Old Lancaster Pike fire station sign read, “Prayers to our Brothers & Sisters of the Wilmington FD.”

The deaths mark the second incident that has seen a Delaware firefighter killed on the job this year.

On July 11, Tim McClanahan, a volunteer firefighter from Lewes, died after falling from a helicopter while training with the Delaware Air Rescue Team. Clanahan, 46, was a veteran emergency responder. He previously worked work for Priority 1 Rescue in Texas, which provides emergency service via helicopters to oil rigs and industry service ships in the Gulf of Mexico.

Before Saturday, the most recent Wilmington firefighter death was Prince Albert “Ali" Mousley Jr., who was 58 when he was among the first to arrive at a house fire on the 2800 block of North Tatnall Street in Jan. 6, 1998. At the scene, Mousley collapsed with a heart attack and died. He was a 27-year veteran of the force.

Goode, the Wilmington fire chief, knows well the dangers of the job. His father, Lt. James Goode Jr., died of a heart attack at a city fire station after he aided a rescue mission on the Delaware River on June 18, 1990. He was an 18-year veteran of the force.

At least 13 firefighters have died in the line of duty since the department’s first paid platoon of 50 firefighters started service in 1921.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced for Leach and Fickes.

Goode on Saturday called both men heroes.

"Please keep those children and those families and all the members of the Wilmington Fire department in your prayers," he said.

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6. Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3 . Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.

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