A Yonkers firefighter jumped to his death while battling a blaze Friday, becoming the local fire department's first fatality in more than 20 years.

Fire officials say intense heat forced 39-year-old Patrick Joyce, a 16-year-old veteran of the department, to jump three stories from a burning building on Waverly Street. Two other firefighters who also took the leap survived.

Joyce's name will be inscribed on the firefighters' memorial below the name of the last Yonkers firefighter who died while responding to an alarm in 1986.

Joyce became the sixth New York firefighter to die in the line of duty so far in 2009, and the 73rd to die nationwide.