Newsday

"It is being considered," said Francis X. Gribbon, a spokesman for the Fire Department of New York.

Current FDNY policy allows supervisors with a depleted air supply to leave a situation "immediately dangerous to life and health" and for subordinates to remain if another supervisor takes over, Gribbon said.

The review of air supply procedures is one of 32 recommendations about safety, emergency and inspection practices that the FDNY put forward yesterday in a special report about the Aug. 18, 2007, blaze at 130 Liberty St. Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino were found unconscious on the 14th floor and died of smoke inhalation.

The report indicated that an unnamed Engine Company 24 officer who was supervising Graffagnino and Beddia had to leave the fire zone because his air supply ran out, but told other officers his unit was still working.

The officer apparently didn't get another supervisor to take his place and didn't pull both men out with him, said an FDNY official who didn't want to be named.

Copies of the 176-page report will be going to all 350 FDNY units today in the department's effort to reinforce training practices and procedures.

"This is not a report to fix blame," FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said at a news conference yesterday.

Scoppetta acknowledged that an internal FDNY review was being suspended at the request of the Manhattan district attorney's office, which has a grand jury investigation under way.

"Firefighters did an incredible job under difficult circumstances," Scoppetta said.

According to the report, a series of blunders, including a severed fire standpipe, damaged sprinklers and blocked exits, created confusion and "contributed significantly to the death of Graffagnino and Beddia."

"There were no equipment failures at this fire," Scoppetta told reporters.

Scoppetta explained that some firefighters' poor radio procedures only added to the confusion. He said that units are being reinstructed on emergency radio procedures.

Scoppetta said there were numerous "Mayday" emergency calls, some of which couldn't be attributed to particular firefighters. He said a review was unable to find any mayday calls from Graffagnino or Beddia.

He also noted that there were no inspections done by the FDNY, the Department of Buildings or the demolition contractor, which would have revealed that a water standpipe had been severed.

Firefighters struggled for more than an hour to find a water supply, officials said.

"Why didn't the buildings department do their inspections for two years?" asked Joseph Graffagnino, father of the dead firefighter. "Had they done their job and gone in there every 15 days, they would have noticed all these violations."

"Nothing that we say is going to bring back the lives of those two firefighters," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "What we've got to do is make sure their procedures are improved to the extent possible so that it doesn't happen again."

Daniel Edward Rosen and staff writer Michael Frazier contributed to this story.