This Building Killed 1 Firefighter but May Save Dozens

This is the third of five chapters in an investigation supported generously by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the George Polk grants for investigative reporting administered by Long Island University.

On the night of Jan. 5, 1996, Firefighter James B. Williams was the "can man" for his company, Ladder 121, when it pulled up to the 13-story building at 40-20 Beach Channel Drive in Far Rockaway after just after 10 p.m. It was windy.

Ladder 121 arrived four minutes after the 911 call came in reporting fire in a third-floor apartment. Capt. John Rokee led Williams and Firefighter Brian Gallagher into the lobby and up the stairs to the third floor. Other firefighters on the scene took to their assigned tasks. Engine companies grabbed hoses and nozzles off their rigs and marched into the building. Rokee and his men came to the entrance to the fire apartment, put on their face masks and pushed through the unlocked door, Rokee and Williams moving to the left, Gallagher to the right—all three searching for people who might be trapped inside. They got about 10 feet in. "Within 15 seconds," an investigation later found, "conditions in the apartment deteriorated to extreme heat and blinding smoke conditions."

Rokee, the report said, "saw a fireball coming at him from within the apartment. … The temperature in the apartment became unbearable." Out in the hallway, three engine company firefighters were quickly surrounded by smoke; they hit the ground and hurriedly put on their masks. Heat roared from apartment 3F, burning these men on their faces and ears and forcing them to evacuate. Outside, residents screamed for help from windows, and fire dispatchers began to get calls from "panicky people" and elderly folks stuck inside.

Rokee, Gallagher and Williams fled down the hall. The apartment door stuck open as they ran out, allowing the heat and smoke to race after them. The hallway was shaped like a T, with the exit located at the long end. As they hustled out of the flaming apartment, all three men missed the turn. Rokee and Gallagher found their way back to the corner and down the hall. Williams did not, and collapsed. In the anxious moments that followed, a firefighter from another ladder company crawled into the hallway, found the hose the engine company had dropped and moved into position to spray the fire but came upon Williams lying in the hall. It took several firefighters to get Williams down the stairs and into the street. He was pronounced dead at Peninsula General Hospital.

A lot went wrong the night Jimmy Williams died. As at Deutsche Bank 11 years later, the delay (a half hour this time) in getting water on the fire was devastating. FDNY investigators blamed this largely on one engine company bringing the wrong hose and trying to hook up to the standpipe so close to the fire that they were exposed to flame and smoke and were unable to finish the job.

But the report concluded that "adverse weather conditions were a significant contributing factor." The tenant in the fire apartment had left her window open. "When the door to the fire apartment was opened, gusting winds drove the fire back into the apartment and toward the members of Ladder 121," the report found.

Ten years later, on Jan. 27, 2006, there was a fire in a sixth-floor apartment in the same building, 40-20 Beach Channel Drive, which is a 234-unit building owned by the New York City Housing Authority. Thirty-three FDNY units responded, led by Ladder 121. This time, it was the apartment door that was left open. As firefighters were searching the room for victims, the windows failed and 40-mph winds turned the fire into a blowtorch. Firefighter James T. Byrne grabbed a probationary firefighter working with him and ran to a nearby apartment to seek refuge. There he heard a Mayday, crawled back into the hallway and discovered Firefighter Kevin McCarthy lying on the ground near the door to the fire apartment, surrounded by flame. Byrne dragged McCarthy 22 feet to safety. For this, Byrne won the FDNY's highest medal for valor. Had he not acted, 40-20 Beach Channel Drive might have killed a second firefighter. As it was, 10 firefighters were injured in the blaze.