Three senior fire officials responsible for inspecting the condemned skyscraper where two firefighters died were stripped of their commands and reassigned Monday, and the Fire Department ordered intensive inspections of buildings under demolition.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg also announced that a preliminary investigation indicated that careless smoking by construction workers started the deadly Aug. 18 fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, which was heavily damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and was being dismantled and cleaned of toxic debris floor by floor.
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After the fire, the department acknowledged that it did not have a plan in place to fight fire at the tower and that it had not inspected the building's standpipe system, which connects fire hoses to its water supply, in over a year, even though it should have done so every 15 days. Inspectors found pieces of the standpipe disconnected in the tower's basement.
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The reassigned deputy chief had received a memo more than two years earlier that included recommendations for how to fight a fire in the contaminated skyscraper, the New York Post reported Monday. The memo recommended that if a fire broke out, just one officer and two firefighters should go into the building to investigate and evaluate the situation.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3528746