NY Daily News

Downtown building a firetrap for FDNY

Instead of using steel or other fire-resistant material to build partitions on each floor to protect the public from falling debris, the crews used plywood, sources told the Daily News yesterday.

Stairwells were sealed, and even the supposedly "fire-retardant plywood" used to build decontamination chambers on the floors for workers clearing asbestos and other toxic substances quickly went up in flames.

Adding to the string of tragic mistakes, the city disclosed yesterday that a chunk of the standpipe was disconnected, a valve broken and there were other breaks in the system. The FDNY slapped the contractor with a violation.

"Fire marshals observed that a section of the standpipe was not attached and was lying on the floor nearby," the FDNY reported. "The Fire Department is also investigating why the building's sprinkler system was not operational."

A source close to the probe said the FDNY found a several-feet-long piece of the pipe in the basement. It had been broken off cleanly, in what was either an act of sabotage or gross negligence, city officials said.

One source speculated it had been deliberately cut by workers who used the standpipe to run compressed air to the upper floors to power their tools. Other broken sections of the water system may have been damaged simply through shoddy demolition work, sources said.

City officials, who were hunkered down all day in meetings about the fire, contended the FDNY and the Buildings Department inspected the standpipe "numerous" times but they provided no dates or documentation.

The Fire Department is supposed to inspect standpipes in working buildings every five years. The former Deutsche Bank building had not been occupied since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bovis Lend Lease, the contracting agent in charge of dismantling and cleaning the building, included a note in its demolition plan that a "dry" standpipe would be maintained throughout the duration of the project. While other cities require demolition crews to have "wet" standpipes containing readily available water in skyscrapers slated for teardown, New York City does not.

Neither Bovis nor its subcontractor, John Galt Corp., has publicly commented on the fire or its aftermath.

The revelations came as the families of Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joe Graffagnino, who were battling the blaze on the 14th floor when they ran out of oxygen and died on Saturday, braced for wrenching funerals.

Fire officials believe Saturday's blaze erupted on the 17th floor on the south side of the building near a decontamination area.

"Marshals have also spoken to eyewitnesses who've stated that workers would smoke and extinguish cigarettes in the area," the report states.

Translators were being rounded up to help investigators question demolition workers - some of whom speak only Spanish and Polish - about the possibility that a discarded cigarette might have sparked the fire, sources said.

"We are using every possible resource to find out how this fire started and what went wrong," Mayor Bloomberg said. A stop-work order has been issued pending the probe. The deaths of Beddia and Graffagnino, both of whom were based at Engine 24/Ladder 5 in Greenwich Village, have also raised questions about the wisdom of sending firefighters to battle a blaze in a condemned building.

Jack McDonnell, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said the FDNY had no choice but to respond.

"It never could have been contained from the outside," he said. "The building could have collapsed, endangering lives and property."

The 41-story building overlooking Ground Zero was badly damaged after 9/11 when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on it. It had been whittled down to 26 stories when the fire broke out, but the contractor had been criticized for the slow pace of the demolition.

Federal safety regulators insisted on the protective partitions after a 15-foot steel pipe fell 35 stories and smashed through the roof of a nearby firehouse in April.