On Super Bowl Sunday morning, firefighter James J. Butler Jr. was in City Hall, pulling paperwork for a number of building inspections he hoped to start scheduling.
“I got a text from him around 9 a.m.,” Derby Fire Marshal Phil Hawks said.
“He responded (that) he was pulling some paperwork on the inspections ... He was probably going to start calling building owners (Monday.)”
Butler working on a Sunday didn’t surprise Hawks.
“That’s how he was, always doing something for the department,” the fire marshal said. From City Hall, Butler went to the Paugassett Hook and Ladder Co. 4 on Derby Avenue, where at 11:13 a.m. he responded to an alarm at the Dew Drop Inn on North Avenue.
The proprietors there “were getting ready for the Super Bowl and cooking some wings and set off the alarm,” Assistant Fire Chief Dave Lenhart said.
Butler left that scene and eventually went home, where he felt ill. At 5:32 p.m. Sunday, Marc Garofalo, the city/town clerk, sent out an email that began “It is with deep regret that I inform you of the passing of James J. Butler.” Information on the cause of Butler’s death was not available Monday.
Butler, 50, was a 35-year veteran of the Derby Fire Department, beginning when he was 16 in the auxiliary program.