Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino, South Orange Fire Chief Daniel Sullivan, and South Orange Police Chief Kyle Kroll have announced that authorities are investigating a fatal fire that occurred in South Orange on Sunday afternoon.
According to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, at approximately 2:15 p.m., units from the South Orange Fire Department were dispatched to a report of a fire at a residence at 360 Warwick Avenue.
Authorities say firefighters arriving at the scene observed an active fire at this location.
As firefighters entered the structure, they located an unresponsive male on the first floor of the single-family residence according to authorities.
Firefighters removed the male from the house then EMS him to Saint Barnabas Medical Center, where doctors pronounced him dead at 3:24 p.m., according to Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas S. Fennelly, of the Prosecutor's Homicide Unit.
Chief Fennelly identified the victim as Weyman W. Watson, 61, who is the owner of the residence and a former Navy airman.
According to published reports, Watson worked tirelessly to preserve the memory of his father -Spann Watson- and others who served as Tuskegee Airmen.
Reports say, in 1927, Spann Watson's family moved north to Lodi, New Jersey, where he completed his primary and secondary education. Reports say in 1937, Watson enrolled at Howard University as a Mechanical Engineering student and earned a private pilot’s license.
During this time, Watson helped break the US Army Air Corps color barrier, when he enlisted as a Flying Cadet in November 1941.
Completing pilot training at a segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field, in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1942, he became an original member of the 99th Fighter Squadron, the first group of Tuskegee Airmen to fight in World War II and the forerunner of the 332nd Fighter Group reports said.
Spann Watson was a founding member and two-term president of the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated, and a signatory of its Articles of Incorporation in which his son Weyman toured the country giving lectures on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen.
No one else was injured as a result of the fire South Orange fire authorities said.
This incident is being investigated by the Essex County Prosecutor's Office Crash and Fire Investigation Unit Chief Fennelly said.
The origin and cause of the fire remain under investigation, according to Fennelly.
**PHOTO CREDIT:** Ryan Christopher Jones - Photographer
**INFORMATION CREDIT:** Wikipedia