L.A. Firefighter Killed in Blaze

A veteran Los Angeles fire captain who had just ordered his crew out of a blazing South-Central industrial building died Sunday after the roof caved in, trapping him in the smoky inferno, officials said. It was the department’s first fatality in 14 years.

Joseph C. Dupee, 38, who friends said had wanted to be a firefighter since elementary school, had just celebrated the birth of his second son 10 days ago, Capt. Steve Ruda said. None of the other 125 firefighters on the scene of the predawn blaze were seriously injured.

“It shows the dedication Capt. Dupee had. He directed his crew to safety, even to the point that he sacrificed his own life,” Ruda said.

Flags flew at half-staff in the 102 Los Angeles fire stations as Dupee’s colleagues remembered him as the epitome of what a firefighter should be.

“His job is to make sure his guys go home tomorrow,” said Capt. Mark Saxelby, a childhood friend of Dupee. “Joe did his job. His guys went home.”

Dupee’s engine was one of 25 that responded to the 2:22 a.m. fire at the single-story Pacific Bird & Supply building in the Hyde Park district of South-Central. Dupee’s was one of three crews ordered to enter the building to try to knock down the fire at its source, Ruda said.

Once inside the building at Western Avenue and 60th Street, however, the crews were engulfed in smoke. “You couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face,” Ruda said. Dupee and another captain decided that the situation was too dangerous and ordered their crews out.

But before Dupee could escape, the roof caved in, apparently knocking off his face mask and sending him crashing to the ground, Ruda said.

Outside, the firefighters realized that Dupee was still inside and launched a full-scale rescue effort, Ruda said. They kept their radio frequencies clear so they could hear if Dupee radioed for help, but they heard nothing.

An emergency rescue team tried to enter through the front door, but the collapsed roof blocked their path. The team circled to the rear of the building and found Dupee on the floor 40 feet inside, severely burned and in respiratory arrest.

Firefighters pulled Dupee outside and began CPR, Ruda said. Dupee was rushed to Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:32 a.m., two minutes after his fellow firefighters finally extinguished the blaze.

The building, which houses a pet food factory, was unoccupied, but firefighters went inside because they have a duty to try to preserve property, Ruda said. He added that in this case the best chance of doing that was to go directly to the fire’s source.

“It’s always hard for firefighters to trade a life for a building,” he said. “A firefighter will trade a life for a life any time. Certainly, to trade a life for a building, people might question that. But that’s the sort of dedication Los Angeles city firefighters have.”

Although Fire Department officials said the cause of the blaze was as yet unknown, they summoned arson investigators and have listed the death as a homicide. Investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were also on the scene Sunday.

The last Los Angeles city firefighter to perish in the line of duty died Dec. 4, 1984, fighting a restaurant blaze near Los Angeles International Airport, Ruda said. “We’ve been blessed” by not having more fatalities, he said, “though we’ve had some near misses.”

In 1994, a national firefighters union found that firefighting was the most dangerous job in America, with more than 40% of firefighters suffering duty-related injuries or death in 1993.

And although the Los Angeles City Fire Department went 14 years without a fatality, a county firefighter’s death in a December 1997 blaze underscored the danger of the work.

“All of us know in the deepest part of our heart that this is a daily possibility,” Ruda said.

For that reason, firefighters have established a Widows and Orphans fund to collect contributions for families such as Dupee’s. Contributions can be sent to the fund at 2900 W. Temple St., Los Angeles 90012.

Joseph Dupee had dreamed of fighting fires since he was a child, said Saxelby, who grew up with Dupee in Simi Valley.

Immediately after graduating from Simi Valley High School, Dupee became a volunteer with the Ventura County Fire Department. He moved to Los Angeles to join the city department.

Dupee served four years at Station 26 on Western Avenue, just north of the Santa Monica Freeway. Co-workers there remembered him as a meticulous, outgoing firefighter who boosted morale with his incessant pranks, such as balancing cups of water on lockers so firefighters would get soaked when they got their gear.

“He was quite the character around the station,” Capt. Andrew Fox recalled.

An accomplished driver, Dupee would needle co-workers about their road skills. They would tease back about what they said was Dupee’s decidedly mediocre cooking. But underneath it all, Dupee was a serious man, his co-workers said. He neither drank nor smoked and was deeply religious, taking time off to go to Bible study.

Dupee also worked in his spare time as an electrician so his wife, Julie, could be a full-time homemaker. “He wanted to be the best family man he could be,” Firefighter Steven Wynne said.

In 1996, Dupee passed the captain’s exam and was promoted--almost at the same time that he married, colleagues said.

The Dupees’ first son was born, and Dupee was transferred to Station 57 on Vermont Avenue and 79th Street, one of the busiest stations in the city, where Ruda said Dupee gained a reputation as a highly responsible and dedicated manager.

“He liked working down here,” Saxelby said. “Working here, being a fireman in the 57th, every day you go home knowing you’ve made a difference in someone’s life. . . . And he liked that.”

Ten days ago, Dupee’s wife gave birth to their second boy, and on Sunday, a blue wooden stork to announce the event still decorated the outside of their new home near Santa Clarita. There, neighbors said, Dupee was a fixture, wheeling his elder son around in a wagon almost daily.

“He was just a role model, a real gentleman and a good father,” said one neighbor, a Los Angeles firefighter who declined to give his name. “You can’t have a worse scenario.”

Another firefighter, Stephen Perez, said he spoke with Dupee on Friday night. It was just a usual, quiet chat about family, Perez said.

“The next day he’s gone,” Perez said.

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.