By Sara Kugler
The Associated Press
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Firefighters spray water on smoldering debris that fell off the Deutsche Bank building after the fire.
Slideshow: Deutsche Bank fire |
NEW YORK — The Fire Department on Monday demoted three fire officials and ordered more intensive inspections at buildings being demolished following the blaze at a vacant ground zero skyscraper that killed two firefighters.
Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said a deputy chief and battalion chief in charge of the area covering the former Deutsche Bank tower and a captain at the local firehouse closest to the building would be reassigned to department headquarters.
Scoppetta also ordered deputy chiefs to inspect all buildings in their divisions that are under construction or demolition and review all plans to fight fire at every building in their area.
The department had said last week it didn't have a plan in place to fight fire at the former bank tower, which was being dismantled and cleaned of toxic debris floor by floor. It also acknowledged that it had not inspected the building's standpipe system, which connects fire hoses to its water supply, in over a year, even though it should have done so every 15 days.
The standpipe was broken at the time of the Aug. 18 blaze; inspectors later found pieces of it disconnected in the tower's basement.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. City officials have said that construction workers routinely smoked near where the fire started, and that electrical equipment used for decontamination showers was also nearby.
"That tragedy really did raise difficult questions and I promise we will get the answers," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday about the blaze.
He was speaking at a firehouse ceremony in the Bronx, for the anniversary of another fire that killed two firefighters a year ago.
Reassigned were Richard Fuerch, deputy chief and commander; battalion chief John McDonald; and Peter Bosco, a captain at Engine 10, the firehouse next to the 26-story partially dismantled tower.
Fuerch had received a memo more than two years before the deadly blaze that contained recommendations for how to fight a fire in the contaminated skyscraper, the New York Post reported Monday.
The March 2005 memo, written to Fuerch by Battalion Chief William Siegel, recommended that if a fire broke out, just one officer and two firefighters should go into the building to investigate and evaluate the situation. Instead, more than 100 FDNY members rushed in to battle the flames.
Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33, died of cardiac arrest after climbing more than 14 stories.
"A ladder company officer and two members should leave the basement area and use the stairwell or elevator to travel to a floor below the location," the memo said.
"The ladder company officer should conduct a search and evaluate what fire department units will be required," Siegel wrote.
A Fire Department spokesman confirmed Monday that the memo was authentic. The department wouldn't comment on whether senior officials read the memo or accepted its recommendations.
The department and Bloomberg were scheduled to speak about the fire at an afternoon news conference.
