After Bronx Blaze, Fire Official Takes Stock
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Days after the Bronx fire that killed nine children and a woman, the New York City fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, highlighted the city’s fire prevention and education programs and its efforts to recruit minority firefighters.
In the wake of the fire, the department’s Fire Safety Education Unit has been fanning out across the city to distribute more than 100,000 smoke detector batteries, he said while testifying before the City Council’s Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services yesterday. Between 2005 and 2006, he said, the department increased the number of fire safety presentations it provided by almost 160%, to 8,622 from 3,244.
Because of the department’s efforts to recruit minority job candidates, the number of minority applicants taking the department’s written exam increased to 37.9% of all test takers in 2007 from 21.1% in 2002.
Council Member Alan Gerson, who sits on the committee, said he is concerned about the proliferation of overcrowded, substandard, unsafe apartments in the city. He said they were an increasing problem, especially for newcomers to New York.
“I am really very, very, very scared,” he said, “that we as a city are sitting on a fire tinderbox in many of our neighborhoods.”
Mr. Scoppetta said the Fire Department has no authority to inspect apartments. He said the Department of Buildings inspects when it receives a complaint.
