'Deutsche' Fire Scapegoats

Based on the report by the Department of Investigation on the Deutsche Bank fire and the punishment meted out by the Fire Department, it would seem that a 17-month failure to conduct inspections at the building prior to the August 2007 blaze that killed two Firefighters was the work of two lessthan diligent fire officers and the five men who supervised them.

Count us among the skeptics that this is a full and accurate accounting of what went wrong.

DOI noted that the fire company charged with inspecting the building—which was badly damaged during the World Trade Center attacks—while it went through an asbestos abatement process in preparation for demolition had done that work on 14 occasions between May 2004 and March 2006. It found that the two officers overseeing the company after that time conducted no inspections at all.

We find it hard to believe that the change in command could have caused that drastic a shift in inspection policy. Yes, building inspections are not the favorite part of the job for many firefighters—even the 14 inspections done previously falls well below the twice-a-month regimen that is required for buildings prior to demolition. They take companies out of service for an extended period, and some see them as a diversion from their primary work.

But the idea that two fire officers in a department where chain of command is of paramount importance would unilaterally make a decision to abandon all inspections of the site over a 17-month period strikes us as far-fetched, to put it mildly.

Even assuming for a moment that they had been that lackadaisical or that intrepid, there was the small matter that a large pipe had fallen from the top of the Deutsche Bank building and landed on the adjoining firehouse, causing extensive damage, just a few months before the fatal fire.

That would seem to have been reason enough for those officers to spring to life in ordering inspections, if not to protect their own jobs then to respond to concerns of company members. It would also figure to be the kind of incident that would get the attention of FDNY brass, and move them to ask what exactly was going on that this could have happened.

Yet the DOI report is mute on what Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta and his top commanders did in response to that incident, except to say that "a lack of communication up and down the chain of command meant that the importance of compliance was not communicated and reinforced to the lower ranks."

Either that, or someone high up in the Bloomberg administration, anxious to have the demolition go forward to help speed the rebuilding of the area near the Trade Center, had offered the suggestion that the department not be too diligent about inspections that might delay the process by finding violations that had to be addressed.

The end result is a Deputy Chief and a Captain lost their commands, and five other chiefs received disciplinary reprimands. It's hard to feel convinced, however, that they were the true culprits in this long-running and deadly negligence.