San Jose Mercury News - Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen

San Jose Mercury News - Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen:

Fire next to Ground Zero kills 2 firemen

Click photo to enlarge

* Smoke rises from the Deutsche Bank Building, center, bordering ground... (AP Photo/Verena Dobnik)

• «
  
  
• 1
  
  
• »
  
  

NEW YORK—A blaze that killed two firefighters in an abandoned skyscraper being dismantled next to the World Trade Center may have been harder to combat because of plastics required by a federal agency to control asbestos, the governor said Sunday.

The blaze broke out Saturday on the 17th floor of the former Deutsche Bank office building, which has been a toxic site since it was damaged by falling wreckage when the trade center's twin towers collapsed and contaminated by toxic dust.

During demolition work, the federal Environmental Protection Agency had required that polyurethane sheets be used to prevent asbestos and other harmful debris from escaping, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said at a news conference.

The polyurethane "may in fact have made this fire harder to fight," Spitzer said.

Questions about other complications also were emerging on Sunday, including why the partially gutted building's water supply did not work, forcing firefighters to run hoses up to the 17th floor.

"The standpipe was not operating. We don't know why yet," fire department spokesman Frank Gribbon said.

Spitzer said the latest air-quality tests for asbestos and other fine particulate matter had been negative.

The once 40-story building was abandoned after the attacks because of extensive damage from wreckage falling from the towers and contamination by toxic dust containing asbestos, dioxins, lead and other materials. It had been largely gutted by demolition crews and workers have been taking its steel skeleton apart in pieces.

The cause of the fire was unknown, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it might have been fueled by plywood, boxes and other flammable supplies related to the dismantling work.

A worker in the building discovered the fire on the 17th floor, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said.

More than five dozen fire vehicles, carrying more than 270 firefighters, were sent to the site as pieces of burning debris fell to the streets. Smoke was visible from midtown Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

Nearby buildings were evacuated, and residents waited for hours before they were allowed to return.

"We heard this crackling," said Elizabeth Hughes, who saw the fire from her rooftop deck across from the Deutsche Bank tower. "And then a huge fire that went up three floors fast. It was massive."

The building's structure was secure and in no danger of falling, Bloomberg said.

The firefighters who died, Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33, were trapped and inhaled a great deal of smoke, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The collapse of the twin Trade Center towers across the street killed 343 firefighters. Eleven of them came from the same firehouse where Beddia and Graffagnino were based.