Off-Duty Watertown Firefighter Goes into Burning Building to Save Woman

An 18-year-old woman escaped injury Saturday when an alert off-duty firefighter smell something burning and spotted a house on Standish Road burning on Saturday.

Deputy Fire Chief Robert Iannetta was spending his day off with his family in the back yard of his house, when he smelled something burning.

"I thought it might be mulch or something, so we went in to have lunch," Iannetta said. "Then the smell was getting stronger, so we went back out and saw the back of the house behind us on fire."

Flames were burning the back, outside wall of the two-story colonial home. Iannetta told his wife to call 911, and he jumped over the fence to see if anyone was home.

"There was no car in the driveway, but the door was open so I assumed somone was home," Iannetta said. "I yelled and screamed and one of the daughters of the family came down. She had been sleeping at the time."

Two fire engines, a ladder truck and a rescue vehicle responeded to the fire, and crews put out the flames in the back of the home. Parts of the back of the house were damaged by the flames, according to the fire report.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Deputy Chief Robert Quinn, the officer in charge at the scene of the fire, said he would recommend that Iannetta be commended for his actions.

"Without his actions, the situation would have been a lot worse," Quinn wrote in his report.

Iannetta said he was glad to help.

"It was lucky I was out there," Iannetta said. "It's good that it worked out well."