WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. By John F. Bailey. December 8, 2004: The White Plains Department of Public Safety has confirmed in talking with firefighters who were first into the apartment fire at 23 Old Mamaroneck Road Tuesday night that two rescues were executed in the first smoke-filled minutes of the fire.
Fire Lieutenant James Maganello felt the presence of a person collapsed on the stairway as he was groping his way up the stairway between the 4th and 5fh floors of 23 OMR as he was searching for residents of the building in dense, zero visibility conditions.
Maganello told Inspector Daniel Jackson, of the Public Safety Department that he was proceeding up the staircase in dense smoke, feeling his way up the stairwell when he felt a body with his fingers. He then proceeded to carry a woman, unconcious from the smoke, down two flights of stairs where he handed her off to two other fire fighters. The woman, Inspector Jackson reports, is still hospitalized at White Plains Hospital Medical Center. Another person who was disabled was also found and placed on a fifth floor fire escape where Police Detective Wilhelm stayed with her until it was safe to evacuate her. The fire was declared completely out at 5:50 P.M.
Jackson said that Deputy Commissioner David Chong was first on the scene within one minute of when the alarm was called in. Jackson reported the first apparatus arrived within 3 minutes and firefighters were into the building, deploying hose and into the building within 3 minutes of the 4:36 P.M. alarm He said he did not have a time when water was first poured on the fire. He said that within 3 minutes firefighters were into the building looking for occupants and attempting to make rescues in what Jackson described as a smoke-filled environment. Fire did go beyond the 3-C apartment where it began in a bedroom.
Have To Go at the Fire From the Inside.
Jackson explained that contrary to what observers might think, a fire of this sort cannot be attacked by water from the outside by pouring water into the windows, because “you drive the fire into other apartments, and you would have more fire damage to other apartments.”
He said the fire was contained within Apartment 3-C where it started. He described the building as sustaining extensive smoke and water damage on the other floors in another of other apartments. Jackson said of reports in other media that firefighters did not attack the fire fast enough, that “it is a terrible thing to watch your life’s belongings to go up in flames, and it never seems as if enough is being done.”
Jackson said that hose was deployed up the stairwell to the third floor and to the apartment where the blaze was situated and extinguished from the inside.
Investigation Continues.
Jackson said there is a question of whether smoke detectors were deployed within the building, and that is under investigation along with the cause of the fire. He said there were no sprinkler systems in the premises. He had no knowledge of whether fire extinguishers were available in the building.
The spokesman for the Department of Public Safety said 50 White Plains Firefighters were actively involved in fighting the fire, representing 10 companies, 4 mutual aid departments were deployed.
