Firefighters make a dramatic rescue during a two-alarm fire
Published: March 2, 2006
Firefighters rescued a woman hanging out her window from a high-rise fire that ripped through the top floor of an apartment building in the Wingate section of Brooklyn.
Firefighters rescued a woman hanging out her window from a high-rise fire that ripped through the top floor of an apartment building in the Wingate section of Brooklyn. Eyewitness News has learned the female resident was hanging out the 25th floor of the Ebbets Field Apartments at 1700 Bedford Avenue when firefighters responded to the second-alarm fire just after 3 a.m.
Firefighters on the roof performed the daring roof rescue, apparently using a department-issued safety rope system to pull the woman from the window. She was yanked to safety on the roof.
Firefighters searched the 25th floor for the fire, which spewed smoke throughout the floor. The blaze apparently started in a compactor in the basement and spread up through the building.
Officials say numerous residents were overcome by smoke and treated for smoke inhalation.
The safety rope system was ordered last year after two firefighters died when they jumped nearly 50 feet trying to escape a fire. The FDNY began issuing safety ropes and training firefighters, but halted the use of the system less than 10 days later when a flaw was detected during training.
Since then, an adjustment has been made to the system to keep the rope aligned on the descent track, and the FDNY began issuing the ropes in early December. The department expects to have all 11,000 firefighters trained in using the safety rope system by June.
Fire officials say the new ropes were lighter and less cumbersome than ropes used in the past. The rope connects to a safety harness on the firefighter’s pants. Research and development of the system cost $11 million.
A bulkier but weaker rope was phased out in 1996 in a decision that unions said was made to save money and that officials said was made to reduce the bulk that firefighters carry. The FDNY stopped issuing individual ropes in 2000.
One of the four firefighters who survived the Bronx blaze, reportedly carried a nonregulation rope he had bought at a fire trade show.
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