Fire officials investigating the deaths of two firefighters in the former Deutsche Bank building have found that demolition contractors failed to maintain a standpipe used to supply water to the building.

The firefighters died Saturday in a huge blaze in the abandoned building after running out of oxygen as they dragged hoses to fight a fire on the 17th floor — which due to the disabled pipe had no water supply.

The contractor responsible for the demolition, Bovis Lend Lease, and its subcontractor, John Galt Corp., were responsible for keeping the standpipe operational, according to fire officials. During an investigation into the failure of the pipe, fire marshals found a section of the pipe that had been detached lying in the basement of the building.

Fire officials were investigating how the pipe was dismantled and why the sprinkler system also failed during the fire. They said the contractors would be issued a violation for the disabled pipe.

In a separate investigation, fire officials were trying to determine the cause of the fire, but said they had not ruled the fire suspicious.
“We are using every possible resource to find out how this fire started and what went wrong,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement yesterday. “Certainly, we owe that to Firefighters Beddia and Graffagnino.”

The building has been abandoned since September 11, 2001, when pieces of the World Trade Center towers fell onto it, littering its floors with toxic debris and human remains. Demolition of the building began in earnest only in February, after years of legal wrangling over costs and environmental concerns. Workers were taking the building apart floor by floor, scrubbing down the contaminated materials as they went.

Officials said the fire started in an area of the 17th floor on the south side of the building used as a decontamination station, where employees doffed their hazmat suits.

The officials said witnesses told them workers often smoked cigarettes in the area, which was near an elevator workers used to exit the building. There was also electrical equipment in the area, including hot water heaters for decontamination showers.

An estimated 200 employees of John Galt and Bovis Lend Lease gathered at the building site next to ground zero starting at about 6 a.m. yesterday for one-on-one interviews with fire marshals, according to a representative of the asbestos laborers union, Edison Severino.

In addition to the interviews, fire officials said the investigators were examining the burned sections of the building.

Contractors had completed about a third of the demolition since they began in February, and would earn a $6 million incentive payment if they finished deconstructing the remaining two thirds in the next five months.

The buildings department has halted the demolition pending the investigation into the fire’s cause.

It is the latest of a series of stop-work orders at the site: Several safety violations have forced the contractors to stop the demolition in the past, and both companies have wracked up thousands of dollars in fines over the course of the project.

A spokesman for Bovis Lend Lease, Mary Costello, referred calls for comment to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., and someone who answered the phone at John Galt declined to comment about any inquiries into the fire. A spokesman for the LMDC could not be immediately reached for comment.

Some of the employees gathered at the site yesterday waiting their turn to speak to fire investigators said they were skeptical about reports that cigarettes may have caused the fire. They said smokers usually left the building for their cigarette breaks.

Employees at the site yesterday also said they didn’t believe any workers would have been inside the building at 3:45 p.m., when the fire started. The Saturday shift ended at 3 p.m.

“I don’t know that it takes that long for a cigarette butt to start a fire,” Mr. Severino said.

The employees said they have been told they would return to work in two to four weeks.

Before they do, fire officials yesterday said the contractors would have to bring the standpipe into working order.

They said the contractors’ responsibility for the pipe was outlined in several documents, including the contractor’s health and safety plan and its implementation plan.

Mr. Severino said that many were worried about the conditions they would find in the decrepit building when they returned, and said the union was calling on agencies to ensure that both the standpipes and sprinkler system were functioning before workers, many of them Polish and Hispanic immigrants, resumed work.

“They’re working on a high rise, but there’s no sprinkler system and no standpipes. The workers didn’t know. I don’t know what the contractor knew,” Mr. Severino said. “It’s unfortunate that this had to happen to bring the issue to a head.”

Officials yesterday said that five floors of the building had been damaged in the fire, but reiterated assurances that it was structurally sound.

A consulting engineer with experience in demolitions, Steve Harwood, said the already difficult task faced by demolition crews could be greatly complicated by the fire damage.

“Any fire of that magnitude changes the structural integrity of the building. It’s going to have to be really scrutinized,” he said. “It’s like a badly burnt marshmallow.”

Area residents said yesterday they were concerned that the building could collapse and that they were not convinced by official reassurances about air quality in the neighborhood, which is still being tested.

A group of residents led by the chairwoman of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, is meeting with city agencies today to ask about what went wrong, and to demand an overhaul of evacuation procedures, transparency in air monitoring, and increased preparation for fires once the demolition work on the building resumes.

Funerals for the two firefighters who died in the fire on Saturday are scheduled for this week.

The funeral of Joseph Graffagnino, an eight-year veteran, will be held at St. Ephrem’s Church at 929 Bay Ridge Parkway in Brooklyn on Thursday at 10 a.m. Visitation will be held at Andrew Torregrossa & Sons Funeral Home on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The funeral for Robert Beddia, a 23-year veteran, will be held Friday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 460 Madison Ave. in Manhattan. Visitation will held at Harmon Funeral Home on Wednesday and Thursday at 571 Forest Ave. in Staten Island.