Robert “Bobby” Kilduff Jr. was still doing what he had always done last Saturday night: running toward danger. The 24-year Boston Fire Department veteran fell from a third-story window while fighting a three-alarm blaze in Dorchester, was rushed to Boston Medical Center, and later died of his injuries.
His family spoke publicly Friday, and the loss landed in the middle of a life built around service. Mason Kilduff, 22, said the family always knew the job carried risks, even as his father spent years helping organize honors for fallen firefighters. “It’s unbelievable,” he said, adding that it was always in the back of his mind that the work came with a “what if.”
The fire itself was only part of Kilduff’s final day. Earlier, he helped with a technical rescue and aided in saving a man trapped in an MBTA elevator shaft. Later that night, during the Dorchester blaze, he and his crew kept flames from spreading to nearby houses before he was badly hurt in the fall.
What his children and longtime girlfriend described Friday was a firefighter, but also a father, partner and mentor whose identity reached well beyond the station. Hannah Jane Kilduff, 24, said her father loved the job, loved the people he worked with and was proud of the work he did. Jess Spruell, 43, said she wanted to emphasize how much he loved being a dad and called him her best friend.
There was a life before the fatal call, and it was marked by the same instinct to show up. Kilduff was a former Marine and a third-generation firefighter. His son recalled that in 2015, the two of them landed on a Duck Boat with Patriots players during the Super Bowl rolling rally parade after the team beat the Seahawks, a memory that now sits in stark contrast to the night that ended in a Dorchester fire.
The family’s description of him carried a sharper edge because they had spent years around the dangers of the work. Mason said he knew the risks, yet no amount of familiarity made the loss easier to take. Hannah said her father was a hero outside of being a firefighter, and that he loved being able to give back to the people of Boston.
Support has already surged around the family. The Greg Hill Foundation and the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts had raised more than $90,000 in separate fundraisers, and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation said it will pay off the mortgage on Kilduff’s home and the children’s student debt. The foundation did not give a timetable for the payments, leaving the family with a wave of help that is substantial, but still arriving after the central question has already been answered by the fire itself.
For Boston, Kilduff’s death is not just another line-of-duty loss. It is the end of a long career that touched rescue calls, memorial duty and the people closest to him, and the next public measure of that loss will come in how the city and the fire department honor a man who spent his life honoring others.
