Update
Volunteer firefighter dies in West Milford house blaze
by Claire Heininger/The Star-Ledger
Sunday March 09, 2008, 6:34 PM
A veteran volunteer firefighter from West Milford collapsed while battling a fire today and was pronounced dead soon after at a local hospital, police said.
Raymond Barrett, 62, was on the scene of a house fire on Navajo Trail when he collapsed inside the building, police said. His firefighting colleagues performed CPR on the way to Chilton Memorial Hospital, but Barrett was pronounced dead shortly after 5 p.m., police said.
His exact cause of death was not immediately clear, police said.
No one else was injured in the blaze, which appeared to start in the home's attic and was called in by a neighbor at 2:49 p.m., police said. The home's residents were not there when the fire started, police said.
Police and friends said Barrett had been a volunteer firefighter for several decades.