Decorated Firefighter Retires After 30 Years in TX

One wall of the office in Austin Fire Station No. 6 is covered with newspaper clippings showing the department’s proudest moments. Several clippings recount a harrowing fire that broke out the morning of Jan. 5, 2000, and prominently feature a firefighter named Alphonse “Ax” Dellert, who retired Friday after 30 years.

“John and I, we’ll joke about that — that was a crazy way we brought in the millennium,” Dellert said.

John is then-Austin fire Capt. John Butz. On that morning, Dellert saved his life.

“I heard a voice: ‘Help me; help me; I’m burning,’ ” Dellert said. “And it just so happened that everything that could go right did.”

A ladder happened to go straight to the second-story room where Butz was trapped. He had dropped his flashlight as he fell, and the light happened to shine toward Dellert.

He jumped in the window, found his way to Butz and pulled him out. Dellert handed him to another firefighter in the window.

“About that time, I thought I was going to lose my thumbs,” Dellert said. “I already thought I lost my ear. My oldest son is special needs, and that’s when I started worrying — if I don’t have thumbs, I might have a hard time taking care of him.”

With third-degree burns, he reached another window, jumped out and found Butz, who was calling out to ask who had saved him.

Dellert still smiles when he remembers what Butz said when he learned who had pulled him out.

“His response was ‘Thanks, buddy,’ ” Dellert said. “He’s doing good (now).”

After that night, Dellert became one of the most decorated firefighters in the state. He’s the only firefighter in Austin’s department to receive its two highest awards, the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Valor, and he’s also gotten other awards “for John,” he said.

Despite all the awards, fire Lt. Dan Dillon said Dellert is one of the few older firefighters who still acts like a rookie, never skipping a step.

“He does everything,” Dillon said. “Nothing’s missed. When someone comes to the door, he’s the first one up. When the phone rings, he’s the first one to grab it. Just all the little things that usually it’s the younger guys who are expected to do that. But Ax, he steps right in.”

Mike Pfaff is one of those younger guys — he’s been a firefighter for only a few months, although he knew Dellert beforehand through his work as an EMT. He called him “the ultimate firefighter role model.”

“A mentor. Like a father. He’s just the most humble, humbling person ever,” Pfaff said. “You wouldn’t know what his accomplishments (were), all his years of service, just from how humble he is. He’s always the first one cleaning the bathrooms.”

The Fire Department will thank Dellert one more time at his retirement coffee Aug. 19, when he’ll get his official send-off, but he hung up his coat for the last time at noon Friday.

For his final shift, Dellert’s younger son, Stephen, got to watch him work for the first time. His eyes welled up as he accompanied his dad on a call and watched him help a motorcyclist who’d been involved in a collision on South Congress Avenue.

“He’s set the bar pretty high for men — let alone his son,” Stephen Dellert said.

The elder Dellert said he’s about ready to stop waking up in the middle of the night for alarms, but he’s going to miss his fellow firefighters and his second home in the firehouse.

“As serious as it gets out there, it’s the total opposite in here,” he said.

At 57, Dellert has big plans for retirement. He and his wife are planning to buy 11 acres outside of town. They’ll grow olive trees, build a house, travel some. He wants to visit Butz, who retired from the department and lives in California now.

Butz and Dellert became close friends after the fire, Dillon said, but at the time they were just co-workers.

“It wasn’t like that was his best friend in there,” Dillon said. “Ax was just doing it because that’s what you do. He wasn’t coming out until he pulled him out.”

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