Three New York City firemen were killed this weekend battling intense flames.
This is from the Monday, January 25, 2005 New York Daily News.
Deadly fires caused by extension cord, space heater
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published on January 24, 2005
The Bronx blaze that led to the weekend deaths of two veteran firefighters apparently started when sparks from an overheated extension cord ignited a mattress and bedding, the fire department said Monday.
And the Brooklyn fire that killed a third firefighter hours later may have been caused by combustible materials near an electric space heater, according to preliminary findings by fire marshals, the Fire Department of New York said in a statement.
Lt. Curtis Meyran, 46, and Firefighter John Bellew, 37, died after jumping from the burning building in the Bronx. Richard Sclafani, 37, was fatally injured at the Brooklyn blaze.
The three deaths made Sunday the deadliest day the fire department has seen since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center killed 343 firefighters.
Meyran and Bellew were among a group of six firefighters who became trapped while searching for people inside the burning building on East 178th Street. All six men, faced with what Mayor Michael Bloomberg called a "horrifying choice," leaped from the fourth floor.
The four who survived remained in critical condition on Monday. Jeffery Cool, Eugene Stolowski and Brendan Cawley were at St. Barnabas Hospital; Joseph DiBernardo was at Jacobi Medical Center.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, two other firefighters, Thomas Brick, 30, and James J. O'Shea, 41, have died on duty in New York; a third, Christian Engeldrum, was killed while on active duty for the Army in Iraq.
[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 01-25-2005).]
