Mansfield Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Danielson is back on the job after spending two weeks in the hospital following his heroic efforts to save a family trapped in a burning building last month.
On the night of Oct. 21, Danielson was in the right place at the right time when a house fire broke out at Khuyay Alpaca Farm on Warrenville Road, just a few doors down from his own home.
“I had just pulled into my driveway and the tones went off,” Danielson said. Danielson was the first to arrive at the scene and rushed inside the burning building. “I yelled out, ‘Is anybody in here?’ and I heard, ‘Yes, upstairs,’” he said.
Other first responders arrived shortly after as Danielson found two people trapped inside. One of them was Janet Dauphin. “He was there so fast,” Dauphin said.
Danielson described the harrowing scene inside the smoke-filled home. “I wound up getting a flashlight, placing it on the floor. I shone it down the hallway, and about four feet down, all I saw were four fingertips, motionless, shrouded in smoke,” he said. Unfortunately, Dauphin’s 79-year-old mother Carol didn’t survive the fire. One dog also died in the blaze. Dauphin was taken to the hospital. “I just was so moved by the fact that he would take that risk and do that to save someone that he didn’t even know,” Dauphin said.
Danielson, a proud first responder, said his commitment to saving lives drives his actions. “You throw human factor into it, human safety, human life, and you kind of switch gears,” he said.
The deputy chief has been passionate about firefighting since childhood. “I was probably the only kid in the neighborhood with a firetruck in their driveway,” he said. Danielson received a hero’s welcome back to the firehouse after his hospital stay. The home at the farm is heavily damaged, and the cause of the fire is still being investigated. Dauphin said she plans to rebuild at the farm and have the place up and running soon.
