Cigarette Blamed for Fatal Blaze Near Ground Zero

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The New York Sun

A construction firm employee’s cigarette likely sparked a blaze that killed two firefighters in the former Deutsche Bank building last week, city officials said yesterday.

Cigarette smoking, although forbidden, was “rampant” throughout the building during a delicate demolition project that involved the participation of three private contractors and the oversight of several city and state agencies, a New York City Fire Department spokesman said.

“Smoking was engaged in throughout the building, and particularly on the 17th floor, where the fire originated,” Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said earlier at a news conference, noting that electrical failure had been ruled out as a possible cause.

The bank building was being dismantled piece by piece after it was showered with asbestos and other toxins during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

In the wake of numerous failures that led up to the fire, Mayor Bloomberg said the fire department would be overhauling its building inspections procedures and also announced that three fire department officers responsible for overseeing the former bank building would be removed from their commands.

Mr. Scoppetta has 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 the 429 buildings across the city undergoing construction or demolition, and to pass their reports up to fire department borough commanders.

“I am not interested in finger-pointing,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I simply want to fix what is broken.”

Two of the officers removed from their commands 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 condemned bank building that was responsible for inspecting it every 15 days — was also removed and reassigned to headquarters.

Fire officials disclosed last week that Engine 10 had stopped the regular inspections when demolition began this year. They said Captain Bosco, who began working at Engine 10 about a year ago, confirmed that inspections had been discontinued.

It is unclear who made the decision to stop the inspections, but Chief McDonald, Captain Bosco’s superior, was also removed from his post over the inspection issue.

Deputy Chief Fuerch was removed because he failed to create a unique pre-fire plan for the former Deutsche Bank building before the fire broke out there August 18, officials said.

A battalion chief, William Siegel, had sent Mr. Fuerch memos recommending that a fire plan be created for the building on three separate occasions in early 2005, a fire department spokesman said. Mr. Fuerch, after consulting with officials in the hazardous materials and the high rise building units, decided to use a generic 61-page high rise fire plan instead, officials said.

Conditions in the building quickly made the generic plan moot on the day of the fire. Stairwells were blocked by plywood, a maze of plastic curtains and piles of debris disoriented firefighters, exhaust fans meant to keep contaminated air from escaping the building sucked the fire down to lower floors, and a broken standpipe forced firefighters to improvise to get water to their hoses.

Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino died after running out of air while trying to escape the building. They were buried last week.

Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday the city had enlisted the FBI’s assistance in the investigation into the dismantled standpipe. A section of the pipe in the basement was discovered to be missing following the fire, and a valve on the pipe had also been closed.

Pieces of the pipe that adjoined the missing section have been sent to FBI labs in Quantico, Va., where investigators will try to determine whether someone took apart the pipe. The alternative is that the pipe blew apart under pressure, possibly when water met with the closed valve. The FBI is expected to finish its analysis in about a week, the mayor said.

Besides the fire department, four additional city and state agencies are involved in investigating the fire, including a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

The president of the United Fire Officers Association, John McDonnell, criticized the removal of the three officers before the conclusion of the other investigations, suggesting they were being used as “scapegoats.”

“In its rush to judgment, the Fire Department is losing sight of the persons responsible — people doing the deconstruction and whoever made the decision that hazard abatement should take precedence over fire safety,” Mr. McDonnell said in a statement.

The officers may eventually face disciplinary procedures, and the mayor said the fire department could take “other possible actions — both up and down the chain of command.”


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