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Fire Official: Toxic Fears
at WTC Tower
AMY WESTFELDT
AP
Thursday Aug 30, 2007
NEW YORK — The city's fire department had a
long-standing policy not to enter a ground zero skyscraper where
two firefighters died because of concerns about toxic debris inside,
a reassigned fire official's lawyer said Wednesday.
Capt. Peter Bosco, who was one of the three officials reassigned
this week for failing to order inspections of the building, joined
the Engine 10/Ladder 10 firehouse adjacent to the former Deutsche
Bank tower within the last year.
Bosco "inherited an existing policy of non-inspection"
of the building, his lawyer and brother, John Bosco, said in a
statement.
The policy was in place "to protect firefighters from exposure
to deadly and noxious airborne toxins," Bosco said. The statement
did not say how the captain learned of the policy, and John Bosco
didn't immediately return a telephone message Wednesday.
(Article continues below)
The Fire Department on Monday reassigned Peter Bosco and two other
officials, saying they either ignored suggestions to develop a complete
fire plan for the partially dismantled tower or failed to inspect
it as required.
The department said it hadn't inspected the building's standpipe,
which sends water through the building, in over a year before
the Aug. 18 blaze. It was required to do so every 15 days. The
standpipe was broken at the time of the fire, leaving more than
100 firefighters with a scant water supply to fight the flames.
Peter D'Ancona, a retired firefighter from the same firehouse,
said after inspecting the Deutsche Bank building two years ago
to search for falling glass, a battalion chief told him and three
others not to enter the building again.
The chief told the firefighters, "That's it. You guys don't
go in this building no more. This is not right," D'Ancona
said.
The chiefs, "were looking to protect us, the firefighters
from any deadly contaminants in this building," he said.
Fire Department spokesman Jim Long said the department is investigating
what the firehouse's policy was and whether chiefs gave varying
instructions about the building.
The union representing fire officers wrote a letter Wednesday
to Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta seeking a formal report
of an April 2005 visit to the tower, which the city said last
week was attended by battalion and division members overseeing
the local firehouse.
John McDonnell, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association,
said that the visit should have provided top officials in the
department information about the fire hazards and toxins in the
building.
State and city officials are conducting multiple investigations
into the blaze, which was believed to have started by discarded
cigarettes left by construction workers.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed records from the fire department,
city Department of Buildings, the building's contractors and its
owner, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., but have yet to
receive any documents.
Officials from Bovis Lend Lease, the building's main contractor,
answered some questions at a raucous community board meeting Wednesday
night but declined to speak about the fire, citing the investigation.
They said the firm was developing a new safety plan and expected
to have the broken standpipe repaired and operational by Friday.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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