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New York will become the country's first large city to provide all firefighters with safety ropes.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta is expected to announce Monday that the department will spend $11 million to outfit its entire staff with the life-saving equipment.
The FDNY says the rope was chosen after an extensive review process that involved 40 designs. The rope is made of Kevlar, the material best known for bulletproof vests, and is light and strong even in intense heat.
The fire department stopped issuing safety ropes in 2000, saying they were too cumbersome.
In January two firefighters died and four others were seriously wounded after jumping from a fourth-floor window trying to escape a fire in the Bronx. At the time, the firefighters union said the FDNY had dropped safety ropes from standard equipment simply to save money.
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