2 NY Firefighters Die In Skyscraper Blaze

[Gold9472]

2 NY Firefighters Die In Skyscraper Blaze
7-Alarm Fire Burns Near Ground Zero

http://www.turnto23.com/news/13923462/detail.html

POSTED: 3:18 pm PDT August 18, 2007

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg said two firefighters died of injuries suffered battling a seven-alarm blaze at the former Deutsche Bank skyscraper near Ground Zero.

New York City fire officials said the tower, left vacant since it was badly damaged during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, had flames on multiple floors.

The cause hasn't yet been determined.

Officials were pushing onlookers farther back from the building and set up a command post on the West Side Highway. Officials could be seen poring over a map of the area.

The 1.4 million-square-foot office tower was contaminated with toxic dust and debris after the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed into it. More than 700 human remains were found at the site.

[beltman713]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20338507/

Two NYC firefighters killed in blaze
Fire broke out in vacant skyscraper near ground zero

MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 5:09 a.m. ET Aug 19, 2007

NEW YORK - A seven-alarm fire ripped through an abandoned skyscraper next to ground zero in Lower Manhattan Saturday, killing two firefighters who were responding to the blaze.

Officers at the scene were preventing nearby residents from returning to their homes, telling them that authorities were concerned the former Deutsche Bank office building, vacant since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks turned it into a toxic nightmare, could fall. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that fear turned out to be unfounded.

Two firefighters were killed, and five or six others were taken to a hospital but were expected to be released, Bloomberg said. No civilians were hurt.

Construction crews had already dismantled 14 of the building’s 40 stories — reaching the 26th floor on Tuesday. Some firefighters used stairs to reach the burning upper floors of the building, just steps from where 343 firefighters lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Smoke pouring from the burning building was visible from midtown Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

The acrid smell of smoke, which hung over the neighborhood for days after Sept. 11, returned to lower Manhattan along with the wail of emergency vehicles. More than three dozen fire vehicles, with more than 160 firefighters, responded to the blaze as pieces of burning debris fell from the building to the streets.

Residents said they weren’t allowed home even to rescue their pets.

“We heard this crashing,” said Elizabeth Hughes, who saw the fire start from her rooftop deck across from the tower. “And then a huge fire that went up three floors fast. It was massive. ... Oh my God! I can’t even go in and get my cats.”

The 1.4-million square foot office tower was contaminated with toxic dust and debris after the World Trade Center’s south tower collapsed into it. Bloomberg said the chemicals in the building did not present a significant health risk.

Efforts to dismantle it were halted by a labor dispute last year, along with the ongoing search for the remains of attack victims.

City officials announced in June they had completed recovery efforts at the structure. More than 700 human remains were found at the site.

[beltman713]

So 14 floors of this building had been dismantled and it still didn't collapse from the fire.

[beltman713]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/nyregion/19fire.html

2 Firefighters Are Killed in Blaze at Ground Zero

Two firefighters were killed yesterday battling a blaze in the Deutsche Bank skyscraper, a vacant relic of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that was in the process of being dismantled.

The firefighters were among hundreds who poured into ground zero all afternoon to fight the high-rise fire, which was finally brought under control after seven hours. At least five others were hospitalized, but were expected to recover.

The building, at 130 Liberty Street, had stood as a ghost since parts of the twin towers crashed into it, leaving it severely damaged and filled with toxic debris, including asbestos, dioxin, lead and chromium. For residents nearby, the acrid smoke brought back memories of the grim dust clouds that lingered after the attacks.

The demolition work created difficulties for firefighters trying to reach and put out the blaze, which started on the 17th floor, allowing the fire to mushroom out of control, fire officials said. The building did not have a working standpipe, which runs through high-rise buildings to provide a source of water for firefighters.

It was “a truly difficult fire,” Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said. “We had to lift lines from the street, with ropes in order to get it up to the 17th floor.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the building was structurally sound and not in danger of collapsing. He also said preliminary air-quality tests showed an increase in particulate matter but no hazardous contaminants, though he warned that results of more complete tests would not be available until this morning.

“Air quality and the environmental impact, as you might imagine, are a top concern to us and we are monitoring the situation very closely,” the mayor said at a news conference last night.

All civilians working in the building got out unharmed when the fire was reported at 3:36 p.m. There were no evacuations of adjacent buildings, the mayor said.

Mary Costello, a spokeswoman for Bovis Lend Lease, the construction company in charge of the building’s dismantling, deferred all comments to the Fire Department.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, though officials ruled out acetylene torches, which were not in use Saturday by workers dismantling the building. Investigators are looking into whether the fire was started by a worker smoking, an official said.

The two firefighters became trapped in the building and died of what appeared to be cardiac arrest resulting from exposure to carbon monoxide, Mr. Bloomberg said. They were Joseph Graffagnino, 33, of Brooklyn, who had been with the department for eight years, and Robert Beddia, 53, of Staten Island. An official said he had been with the fire department 23 years and was the senior firefighter on the scene. They were taken to NYU Downtown Hospital, where they died.

They were assigned to Engine 24 and Ladder 5 of Battalion 2, which are housed together at Sixth Avenue and Houston Street. Eleven firefighters from that station house died on Sept. 11.

The two men were found on the 14th floor close to a hose line. An official said they ran out of air.

Mr. Scoppetta said the fire was discovered when workers at the site saw smoke and notified an elevator operator.

Paula Sanchez, who was cleaning on the 18th floor, said she smelled smoke and radioed Marshall Greenberg, the elevator operator. He picked her up, and they went to the 19th floor to get her backpack, then headed down.

But the elevator hesitated, and Mr. Greenberg switched it off and on to get it running again. “I thought I was a goner,” he said.

The workers made it out of the building and notified the Fire Department, which arrived within 3 ½ minutes, Mr. Scoppetta said. Eighty-seven units and 475 firefighters responded, he said.

City, state and federal officials also rushed to the scene, some wearing protective masks over their mouths and noses.

Witnesses at the scene described one of the injured firefighters being pulled from the fire as about a dozen of his colleagues swarmed around and helped carry him into an ambulance.

“Give him air, give him air!” one firefighter yelled. It was unclear if the injured firefighter was one of the men who died.

Friends and neighbors gathered at Mr. Graffagnino’s parents’ home in Brooklyn last night, where they sat on the stairs outside.

“Everyone is in shock,” said one neighbor, who did not want to give her name. “It doesn’t get worse than this. He was the best father. The best husband. The best nephew there ever was.”

Another neighbor, Alexis Trapani, 41, said: “He was a baby when he moved here. He was the nicest person. He seemed so happy. He came from a very close-knit family.” She said she believed he had two children.

Officials said that in addition to the nonfunctioning standpipe, fighting the fire was made difficult by the asbestos removal, which created “maze-like conditions.”

Many areas were partitioned off with plastic, and hallways and walls one would find in other buildings had been torn out.

Workers told officials they had been stripping asbestos from beams, and the fire spread quickly through gaps and holes in the structure.

The blaze spread through spots on 10 different floors through those pockets and voids. It went as high as the 26th story, which is now the top floor of the building.

Demolition of the building, which once stood at 41 stories, had been delayed for years because of environmental concerns, labor and contract disputes, and to accommodate the search for human remains from the terrorist attacks. The chief medical examiner’s office said in February that 766 body parts had been found in the building. Most were fragments less than four inches long.

Demolition finally began in February, but because of the hazardous materials inside, the building had to be taken apart piece by piece, all of the work closely monitored by environmental officials. Workers had dismantled about 15 floors as of Tuesday.

Bonnie Bellow, a spokeswoman with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said there was work being performed at the building yesterday, as on most Saturdays; a shift ended at 3:30 p.m., right around the time the Fire Department received the first reports of a fire at the building.

Ms. Bellow said there are 12 air-quality monitors installed in and around the building. “At this point, we’re gathering whatever results we can from these monitors,” Ms. Bellow added. “For some of the contaminants, we can get instant readings, but other contaminants require further analysis of the monitors’ readings at a laboratory.” She could not provide more specifics.

Burning debris flew from the building to the street below as dark plumes of smoke billowed over Lower Manhattan in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The air smells bad,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, a member of Community Board 1 and chairwoman of its World Trade Center redevelopment committee, which has been monitoring the dismantling of the Deutsche Bank.

“The question we have right now is, what is it that caught fire at the Deutsche Bank? Was it the debris? Was it the boxes containing the asbestos?” asked Ms. McVay Hughes, who lives one block east of the site. “The community is devastated that this happened, and we want to know what will be done to prevent this from happening again.”

Mayor Bloomberg called the fire and the deaths of the firefighters “another cruel blow to our city and to the Fire Department, and specifically to the house that Engine 24, Ladder 5 and Battalion 2 are in.”

Some residents in the neighborhood surrounding ground zero said they weren’t surprised that a fire occurred at the black-draped building, given the problems that delayed its demolition for years.

Viktoria Baklanova, 40, a resident of 90 West St., a 24-floor residential building that overlooks ground zero on its north side, said that the fire evoked scary memories of Sept. 11, especially since firefighters died. “It’s very sad,” she said. “A lot of people died in the area. They just keep dying.”

They should have removed the building much faster, she said. “It just took too much time.”

[beltman713]

Seven hours.

[borepstein]

I wondering what was left there that could burn...

It is a shame those two NYFD men died... As if they haven't suffered enough in the last few years.

As for the rest - watchthe MSM working hard on keeping silent about this one not collapsing.

[AuGmENTor]

Officers at the scene were preventing nearby residents from returning to their homes, telling them that authorities were concerned the former Deutsche Bank office building, vacant since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks turned it into a toxic nightmare, could fall. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that fear turned out to be unfounded.


Funny, they seemed sure it wasn't going to collapse. Anyone checking the basement for molten pools of steel?