Former fire captain mourned after line-of-duty death

House burned as Michael Esposito fought for life

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Michael Esposito, a 43-year-old former captain of the Baldwin Fire Department, died early May 18 of a heart attack. He began feeling the symptoms while en route to a fire at 2870 Grand Ave.

The fire was reported at 3:38 a.m. last Wednesday. North Bellmore dispatcher No. 6 alerted the Baldwin F.D., and firefighters sprang into action.

On the way to the scene, Esposito, riding in Engine 201, complained of chest pains. When the company arrived at the scene of the fire, he was taken by ambulance to South Nassau Communities hospital in

Oceanside.

Esposito’s companions remember him joking as he was loaded into the ambulance. “You guys fight the fire,” he said, according to Chief Kevin Smith. “I’ll take a little ride to the hospital.” But Esposito, whose brother, Todd, is also a Baldwin firefighter, died at 5:02 a.m.

Blaze extinguished, allegations sparked

While Esposito fought for his life, firefighters put three lines into operation to quell the fierce blaze consuming the Grand Avenue house. They worked first on an exterior wall, then moved inside the 2½-story home. In all, it took some 90 minutes to control the fire. No injuries were reported.

“I was asleep around 2 a.m. when suddenly someone came knocking on my door,” said next-door neighbor Emery Jackson, 69. “It was a blond woman. She said, ‘You have to get out of here.’ I looked through the kitchen window and saw that the house next door had gone up like tinder. Sparks were starting to fly in this direction.”

Jackson woke his sister, Anne, and the two sought safety outside. “The Fire Department came and did a heck of a job saving my property,” Jackson said, adding that his home was largely undamaged in the incident, aside from some smoke stains on an exterior wall.

Jackson alleged that he had complained numerous times about illegal activities at 2870 Grand. He said that his aunt, Marie Lockwood, once owned the home, which is more than 100 years old, and that in the past 10 years he had witnessed pot smoking, illegal backyard wrestling and even cockfights on the property.

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