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by William Murphy
Sunday another Father's Day comes and passes without final word on the cause of the fire and explosion in an Astoria hardware store that killed three city firefighters -- all fathers of young children -- on that day in 2001.
"I don't believe it. It's going to be three years -- three long years of hell," Denise Ford, widow of firefighter Harry Ford, said in a recent interview.
One son, Harry, started high school last year. Another son, Gerard, is to begin high school in the fall.
Denise Ford, a telephone installer, entered public life: She was elected to the Nassau County Legislature from the City of Long Beach last fall. She regularly sees Anne Downing of Port Jefferson, widow of firefighter John Downing, and Mary Fahey of East Rockaway, widow of firefighter Brian Fahey.
The families await a conclusive ruling on what happened June 17, 2001, when an explosion during a fire at Long Island General Supply Co. buried firefighters under rubble, killing the three and injuring some 50 others.
What started out as a routine Sunday afternoon fire, with an alarm at 2:20 p.m., escalated to two alarms in less than half an hour as firefighters pumped water on the building and tried to get inside from the front and rear.
Shortly before 3 p.m., a massive explosion occurred. Flames, no longer contained, roared upward. Fire commanders called a fourth alarm immediately, and a fifth alarm three minutes later.
The firefighters dug Ford and Downing from under the bricks of the fallen front wall and eventually pulled Fahey from the basement -- all too late.
At least three investigations related to the fire remain open, and about a dozen lawsuits are pending.
The toll of the Astoria fire, in firefighter deaths and injuries, ranked among the city's worst until 343 members of the service were lost at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That massive blow to the Fire Department also derailed the investigation into the Astoria fire. For the families of the late Harry Ford, John Downing and Brian Fahey, it has been an excruciating three years. They got on with their lives, got to know each other, and later met the families of many firefighters who died Sept. 11.
"These women, we didn't know each other," Denise Ford said. "We've grown so close. We almost think that God has granted us a kindness after all the hell he put us through."
The families of the three firefighters are expected to be honored Sunday in Deer Park at a 5K run/walk in memory of FDNY Deputy Chief Ray Downey, the special operations chief widely recognized for his expertise in disaster recovery, who was killed at the trade center. Downey was a resident of Deer Park.
Ford, in the interview last week, said she was about to join Anne Downing in a couple of hours to go on a 12-hour overnight hike to raise money for "Michael's Mighty Marchers." The drive is named for Michael Downing, who was 5 years old when he died in October after a 16-month battle with neuroblastoma, a cancer.
For Ford's sons, meeting other youngsters who lost firefighter fathers on 9/11 has helped. "They realize there are other children like themselves," she said. "It has a good impact on them."
Her sons don't ask about their father, and counselors have told her that they won't always want to talk about the subject. If she brings it up, she said, "sometimes they get angry." "But if you say something like, 'That sounds like your father,' or 'You look just like your father,' they like that," she said.
A 'textbook' fire
The three families never met with Fire Department officials to hear what happened at the scene, she said.
"We heard it was a textbook fire and we shouldn't have had a loss of life," she said. "Eventually, we will sit down with them and talk about what happened."
Mary Fahey and Anne Downing did not return telephone calls for comment. Ford said Downing had told her the memory was still too painful.
Fire marshals, in a preliminary finding, concluded that the fire at Long Island General Supply started when two youngsters spraying graffiti knocked over a container of gasoline. The gas spilled down a ramp into the store basement, and the fumes were eventually ignited by the flame of a gas-fired hot water heater.
The fire had been developing for more than half an hour when firefighters seeking entry simultaneously opened a window and a rear door, sending in an influx of air that fed the blaze, Chief Fire Marshal Louis Garcia said at the time.
After an examination prompted by the fire, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an arm of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommended in February that the Fire Department ensure that firefighters coordinate their efforts when venting a burning building.
Last week, Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon said that the department already does that and said that the February report contained "general suggestions." He said some of the suggestions already had been implemented or would be addressed by the expected adoption of new fire and building codes for the city. The issue of new codes is to be taken up this fall by the City Council and affected agencies.
The Fire Department said the store's basement contained many flammable products, including six canisters of propane that were stored there illegally.
Sidetracked and delayed
As for other probes into the Astoria fire, the Fire Department and other agencies said they were sidetracked by the enormity of the 9/11 investigation, which is continuing.
One snag has been a delay by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an arm of the U.S. Commerce Department that has been studying the mechanism of a basement fire door in the Astoria hardware store.
There were reports from firefighters and department officials that the door had been left chocked open, which allowed flames, and air fueling flames, to travel between two sections of the basement, in turn allowing the fire to spread rapidly.
A spokesman for the federal agency said earlier this month that its report was in final review and should be out in a few weeks.
Gribbon said the Fire Department's internal safety report is not completed. He refused to say when it might be ready or made public.
The Queens district attorney's office also has been reviewing the deaths for possible criminal prosecution. A spokesman said prosecutors were waiting for final reports from all the agencies involved.
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