A seventeen-year FDNY veteran died while battling a blaze on Staten Island early this morning. At around 12:30 a.m., Lieutenant Robert Ryan was leading the first unit to respond to a fire in a two-story home on Van Buren Street in New Brighton when his mask and air supply were knocked off by pieces of the ceiling that began coming down as it collapsed. The fire was not deemed suspicious and appears to have been......

A fire ripped through a brownstone on West 122nd Street next Lenox Avenue last night. Four residents were rescued, with firefighters knocking out windows on the the third and fourth floors, but an 85-year-old man died. At least one of the survivors went into cardiac arrest. The FDNY told Fox 5 that it started in a 2nd floor kitchen; a witness added that the flames were incredibly red and that it was amazing anyone survived.......

In the wake of the two fatal fires in past weekend, the FDNY wants to make sure New Yorkers have working smoke detectors. Even though 97% of residences have detectors, "more than one third of them are inoperable because the batteries have been removed or are not working." Many times tenants and home owners disable the alarms because they go off due to "cooking vapors or steam from the bathroom." The FDNY says some detectors......

As the MTA looks for any possible source of revenue, it has made a bold suggestion: The agency wants city departments to pay tolls over MTA bridge and tunnel crossings. As WCBS 2 puts it, that includes "firefighters and police responding to emergencies or calls to service." Currently, those city departments are using about 11,000 free E-ZPass tags, so if the MTA gets its way, then the city would need to pay for the approximate......

Yesterday afternoon, a building was evacuated (twice!) due to fumes that sickened over a 100 people. Emergency responders were called to the scene three times and NY1 says the building, which "houses several city agencies including some MTA employees," is next to a train yard. Where, the FDNY explained, "They are getting rid of contaminated soil, and the digging has churned up some odors and the people in the building experienced a little respiratory difficulty......

The Daily News reports that the "empty cigarette packs and beer cans were found on several floors" of the former Deutsche Bank building last week. Last year, the building, which is being slowly dismantled, was the site of a seven-alarm fire that claimed the lives of two firefighters; the fire was started by a worker's cigarette (smoking in prohibited) and exposed a number of violations. The matter is apparently being investigated, but, upon learning about......

Photographs of Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and the FDNY report by Bebeto Matthews The Fire Department released its report into the fatal seven-alarm fire at the former Deutsche Bank building yesterday, and there doesn't seem to be one focus for the blame. Instead, there are many: Per the Daily News, it "blames the FDNY for not conducting mandatory inspections; the Buildings Department for not issuing a formal permit for demolition and the building's contractor......

Yesterday, the city remembered firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia, who died in last year's Deutsche Bank fire, and dedicated plaques in their memories at their firehouse in Soho. Though the investigation is continuing, the Post reports that prosecutors want "officials with the demolition contractor, John Galt Corp., and inspectors the company hired" to face homicide charges. When asked about the city possibly being charged as well, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, “I can tell you......

Photograph of Deutsche Bank fire by Todd Myers Last year, the former Deutsche Bank building was in the process of being dismantled when a fire broke out on August 18. It escalated into a seven-alarm blaze, and two firefighters died after when their oxygen tanks were depleted. It turned out a construction worker's smoking caused the fire, but there were a host of other problems, from the dismantled standpipe (which brings water up in......

A 72-year-old wheelchair-bound Bronx woman is suing the fire department for laughing and injuring her after she called them for help last March, the Post reports. The ex-husband of two-hundred pound Ziola Garcia called 911 after her "self-powered" wheelchair, which elevates 3½ feet to allow her to reach objects, got stuck in the "up" position. But it was all a big joke to the firemen who responded, she alleges: "They were laughing at me, making......

A fire at an apartment building on Lincoln Road grew to 6 alarms, requiring about 250 firefighters to help put it out. First reported just before 6 p.m., the fire broke out "in the space between the building's roof and the ceiling of the top floor." Firefighters had to cut holes in the roof to let smoke escape, and the top floor appeared to be completely destroyed. Residents were given shelter at a nearby school;......

During the September 11 attacks, the police and fire departments weren't able to communicate with each other. Now, almost seven years late, the NY Times reports the agencies have improved their "ability to...operate together." Now, the Fire Department can receive information from police helicopters over a scene and emergency works will be able to "contact the police directly via radio." NYPD Deputy Chief Charles F. Dowd said, "Right now we are fully interoperable on all......

The FDNY revealed a firefighter at Ladder 111 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn died while saving his 10-year-old son who from drowning on Monday. The Daily News says firefighter Martin Simmons was vacationing in Lake Tahoe with his family when his son "developed a leg cramp while swimming" in the 50-degree water. Simmons "had a hard time staying above water" and his death was ruled an accidental drowning. His body arrived at JFK Airport yesterday, and an......

The cable car system at the Bronx Zoo, better known as the Skyfari, gave passengers an unexpected adventure earlier this evening. Just before closing time, around 5:30 p.m., the system broke down leaving zoo patrons hanging above the wildlife below, but at least the bird's-eye-view was nice as they waited for firefighters to rescue them. ...

A two-alarm fire broke out at a 6-floor apartment building on West 148th Street and Riverside Drive around 8:40 p.m., and a man and a 5- or 6-year-old boy died after jumping from the sixth floor. The man, believed to be the boy's godfather, was pronounced dead at the scene while the boy apparently went into cardiac arrest and died at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief John Scudnik said they couldn't get to the......

Yesterday morning, firefighter Eddie Bohan was driving on the Northern State Parkway on his day off when he saw an SUV on fire. Bohan broke into the car and pulled out the driver, 58-year-old John Collymore, who had crashed into a lightpole. The firefighter, assigned to Engine 44 on the UES, first tried to his elbow to break into the vehicle, but ended up taking a metal mile marker to smash the glass. Collymore's daughter......

For some unknown reason, many Europeans are smitten with the NYPD. There are more than a few replica NYPD cars over the pond (ranging from quite accurate to comically inaccurate) some available for rental. So it is no surprise to find on flickr a Belgian named Marc who makes incredibly accurate HO scale models of NYPD and FDNY vehicles and photographs them on a miniature version of New York City streets complete with a precinct......

Yesterday, it was reported it took 51 minutes for an ambulance to respond to a 911 call about an 88-year-old woman who fell at East 55th Street and Lexington Avenue because the ambulance had been dispatched to Manhattan from Staten Island. The incident outraged the FDNY (which is conducting an internal investigation), Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, a witness who helped the lady--pretty much everyone except the fall victim herself! The Daily News contacted the woman,......

Last week, an 88-year-old collapsed in midtown Manhattan. And almost an hour after 911 was called, an ambluance appeared... from Staten Island. Now the FDNY is investigating why exactly an ambulance so far away was dispatched. Police, who came to help the woman lying at East 55th Street and Lexington Avenue, called 911 at 3:24 p.m., and the ambulance arrived at 4:15 p.m. The Daily News explained what seems to have happened:Because the woman was......

After two firefighters died in a building with multiple code violations, the city has become more aggressive in making sure the fire code is being obeyed. The Department of Investigation announced it arrested 104 people in the past week for violations like "faulty sprinklers, blocked exits and no fire extinguishers." The arrestees are Building and business owners and workers at commercial and residential sites who have not appeared in court about outstanding fire code violations.......

In a startling coincidence with the unofficial beginning of summer and the official opening of NYC beaches on Memorial Day weekend, the FDNY says that it can no longer afford to have special patrols by emergency medical technicians to come to the aid of the ailing and injured at the beach. Budget cuts apparently necessitated the curtailment. The EMT union told WCBS news that the FDNY is cutting patrols on city beaches on the days......

Though firefighter Kevin Prior died over six years ago when responding to the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center in 2001, a struggle over his FDNY pension has gone to court. Prior's parents do not think his then-fiancee Doreen Noone should be entitled to half the $75,000 annual pension. They tell the Post it's not really about money, but have the "truth" "acknowledged:The Priors concede that the young couple was engaged, with a......

Now that the NYPD got an almost 10% retroactive pay hike, the firefighters are looking for a similar boost. The Uniformed Firefighters Association want to revisit the raises for the years 2004-2006 where their annual raises were 3.15% or less. The UFA wants a "comparable wage increase" and UFA president Steve Cassidy said of the NYPD's pay increase, "We knew that the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association was going to fight and we wished them well. They......

A Nassau County cop who had just pulled over a car for drunk driving early Sunday morning was hit by another drunk driver on the Long Island Expressway. Newsday reports 30-year-old police officer Kenneth Baribault "suffered severe head trauma, as well as broken bones in both his upper and lower torso" and underwent surgery for a blood clot. After pulling over a Kia SUV's for drunk driving, Baribault went back into his patrol car when......

A 7-year-old Manhattan boy is hospitalized today with burns over 70% of his body after an attempt to make S'mores in a Murray Hill basement went horribly wrong. As opposed to the usual case of youthful misadventure, responsibility for the boys injuries appears to lie with a supervising parent, who allegedly threw a volatile flammable liquid on an open flame, which exploded in the boy's face. The boy was roasting S'mores with a friend on......

The Uniformed Firefighters Association is sounding the alarm over "integrity" tests from the city's Department of Investigation. And the firefighters believe some of the tests include a man leaving a bag of what looked like cocaine and a woman giving cash to firefighters to thank them for freeing her car. The Department of Investigation denies being involved in three of the four incidents the Post mentions (only one sounds like one the DOI conducted years......

Photo courtesy Gothamist reader Heather D. One Park Slope resident emailed us to describe a surprising scene unfolding this morning on 4th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.I went out for my coffee around 10am and there were 4 white undercover SUVs, an NYPD emergency truck and a large, black DEP/HAZMAT truck/mobile unit parked on my street! When I came back from my coffee run I saw a Fire Dept. SUV parked at the 6th......

Image from WABC 7 YIKES! A fire truck responding to a call collided with a car at 111th Avenue and 155th Street in South Jamaica. The male driver is in serious condition--some reports say he is in traumatic cardiac arrest--while two firefighters have minor injuries. WABC 7 says it's "unclear if the fire truck ran a red light." UPDATE: WNBC News is now reporting that the driver was not a male, but 27-year-old female......

Some gamblers don't need their legs broken by loan sharks if they're paranoid enough. The FDNY discovered four men lying in an alley at 35-12 Farrington St. in Flushing, Queens while responding to a call about a smoke condition at the building. According to WNBC, the building houses a not-that-secret illegal gambling operation. Police surmise that when the poorly poker-faced bettors heard the FDNY trucks' sirens responding to the smoke condition call, they figured the......

A just-married couple's reception was interrupted when their reception's catering hall was filled with carbon monoxide. Many guests passed out and/or vomited, including the the groom's mother who collapsed. Groom George Quenneville told the Daily News, "I came outside for a cigarette. Everybody was fine. All of a sudden my brother-in-law comes out saying, 'Your mother is down.'" EMT workers put an oxygen mask on his bride, Sharon Stack. Guests, who described having a "bad......