Bank Blaze Fallout: Cigarette Blamed, Officers Removed
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A preliminary probe into a fire at the former Deutsche Bank building that killed two firefighters indicates that the cause was smoking by construction workers, Mayor Bloomberg said today.
“Fire Marshals have tentatively identified the cause of the fire as careless smoking by workers on the 17th floor,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
Earlier, officials announced that three fire department officers from the units that responded to the seven-alarm fire on August 18 had been reassigned.
Two of the officers are chiefs: the commander of Division 1, Deputy Chief Richard Fuerch, and the commander of Battalion 1, Battalion Chief John McDonald.
Captain Peter Bosco of Engine Company 10 — the firehouse next door to the abandoned bank building that had been tasked with inspecting it every 15 days — was also removed from his command. Fire officials disclosed last week that the firehouse had stopped the regular inspections when demolition began this year.
The city is also probing the failure of the building’s standpipe system, which was supposed to deliver water for fighting fires on the top floors of the tower.
Mr. Bloomberg said that the fire department had sent pieces of a standpipe that was dismantled in the basement of the building to the FBI for inspection. FBI metallurgists will study the pipe at a lab in Quantico, VA to discover whether someone took it apart, or if pieces of the pipe blew off under pressure because of a closed valve.
Mr. Bloomberg said the aim is not to assign blame. “The failures have many owners. They are both in the private sector and in the public sector,” he said. “I’m not interested in finger pointing. I simply want to fix what is broken.”
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta ordered all divisions across the city to review their fire plans, and to visit any large structures that lack a plan. The nine divisions have also been ordered to inspect all buildings undergoing construction or demolition.
The three officers have been reassigned pending the end of a fire department investigation into the cause of the fire and the firefighters’ deaths.
The bank building, located near ground zero at 130 Liberty St., was condemned after it was contaminated with asbestos on September 11, 2001.
