Off-duty rescue by Frank Fraone Off-duty rescue by Frank Fraone (August 18, 2004)

By Jennifer Nuckols
Special to the Almanac

Frank Fraone, a division chief with the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, was technically off-duty when he was driving his 12-year-old daughter and her friend to a professional soccer practice in San Jose on August 6. But, as he is quick to point out, "firefighters are never off-duty."

Early that Friday afternoon, as he was driving on Interstate 280 in San Jose, he noticed a column of smoke along a frontage road. Asking his daughter if she wanted to see firefighters in action, he pulled over and headed toward the smoke -- not expecting to find a woman and her two dogs on the roof of a burning duplex.

The first trained firefighter on the scene, Mr. Fraone took control of the situation at 3208 Moorpark Ave. until San Jose firefighters arrived.

He said that when he got out of his truck his daughter, Giovanna, told him to not enter the building. "She was worried that I was going to enter a burning building without any gear," he said.

Two men, whom Division Chief Fraone identified as neighborhood residents, had already helped most people out of the burning building by the time he arrived.

"Those guys are the ones that deserve the credit," said Mr. Fraone, a Half Moon Bay resident. "They were not trained professionals with a knowledge of the hazards and dangers, so it was beyond anybody's expectations."

The first order of business was to get the woman and her dogs off the roof. After she handed off the animals to Mr. Fraone and the two neighborhood rescuers, she dropped from the roof into the arms of the three men below.

Mr. Fraone also ordered the evacuation of everyone in the complex next door after he saw that the fire was spreading from the second story of the duplex toward the neighboring building.

When San Jose firefighters arrived, Mr. Fraone said, they performed an aggressive, well-coordinated attack on the fire.

By the time he and his daughter and her friend finally made it to the soccer practice at Spartan Stadium, the team was already boarding the bus to go home. But a family friend on the team had all the players sign a T-shirt for Giovanna, said Mr. Fraone.

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