FDNY BC killed Sept 2016

Fire Dept. Battalion Chief Killed in Bronx Explosion After Report of Gas Leak

By ELI ROSENBERG and EMILY PALMERSEPT. 27, 2016

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Emergency workers at the scene of an explosion in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx on Tuesday morning. Credit Amir Levy for The New York Times

The early morning call seemed relatively routine: a report of a gas smell at a small, two-story house on West 234th Street in the Bronx.

But the nearly 20 firefighters who arrived at the house about a half-hour before sunrise on Tuesday noticed something else — materials that indicated that at least part of the home was being used as a drug laboratory, officials said. The firefighters called the police and left the building.

On the street, Battalion Chief Michael J. Fahy was directing his firefighters. Then, the building exploded.

Chief Fahy, a 17-year veteran of the department and a father of three young children, was hit by debris and killed. He had followed his own father, Thomas, into the department. Chief Fahy, 44, lived in Yonkers with his wife and children. He had a law degree and had steadily climbed the Fire Department’s ranks.

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Chief Fahy had been struck on the head by a piece of the roof, officials said. He died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Allen Pavilion in the Inwood section of Manhattan, after being rushed there by police officers, who tried desperately to save his life, the police and fire officials said.

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Michael J. Fahy Credit New York Fire Department

The police said they had a man in custody whom they were questioning in relation to the case.

It was the first line-of-duty death for the Fire Department since Lt. Gordon Matthew Ambelas died in 2014, according to the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York.

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At a news conference at the hospital on Tuesday morning, the fire commissioner, Daniel A. Nigro, described Chief Fahy as “a rising star” of the department. “He was a star, a brave man,” Mr. Nigro said, emotion weighing in his voice. “We feel it deeply, we feel it deeply today.”

Chief Fahy had briefly worked as lawyer for the firm Proskauer Rose before joining the Fire Department in 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile. He rose from firefighter to lieutenant to captain and, finally, to battalion chief in 2012. He had also earned a master’s degree in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School.

About 20 other people were injured in the explosion, including nine firefighters, six police officers and three workers from Consolidated Edison, Mr. Nigro said. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

The police had been looking at West 234th Street, in the Kingsbridge neighborhood, after receiving a tip that a house there was being used to grow marijuana, Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said at the news conference. Officers were in the initial stages of an investigation there, he said.

The explosion sent wood, bricks and a large part of the building’s roof tumbling down, much of it into the street and onto cars parked there. Neighbors and residents from the surrounding blocks reported their buildings shaking them awake.

Detail area

Irwin ave.

Riverdale ave.

tibbett ave.

Explosion site

w. 234th st.

Ewen Park

South

Riverdale

Kingsbridge

w. 231st st.

Bronx

Maj. deegan expwy.

broadway

Manhattan

sedgwick ave.

SEPT. 27, 2016

By The New York Times

Images on Tuesday showed the two-story dwelling reduced largely to rubble. A video shot by a neighbor showed firefighters dousing the smoking building in water as sirens blared nearby.

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The explosion was felt and heard blocks away, jolting the quiet residential neighborhood and touching on the jittery nerves of a city still on edge from the bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey 10 days earlier.

“It’s hard not to make these assumptions these days,” said Campbell Abbott, 24, who lives a block away and shot the video after the explosion. “I thought it was some rogue terrorist.”

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Nonetheless, Mr. Abbott left his seventh-floor apartment to head to the scene of the blast to shoot the video, which he broadcast live on Facebook.

Matthew Chrisphonte, 21, said he was asleep in his family’s home, across the street and a few doors down on Tibbett Avenue, when he felt the blast. “My entire house shook, and immediately following the explosion I heard screaming, yelling,” he said.

Mr. Chrisphonte said a building close to the explosion site housed a day care center, which was evacuated.

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Marble Hill

One firefighter was killed and about 20 other people were injured in the explosion, the fire commissioner said. Credit Amir Levy for The New York Times

The person listed in public records as the owner of the property could not be reached for comment. The police said the house was occupied by renters, but they had yet to identify them.

Many neighbors said the house was frequently occupied by college-age tenants, but none seemed to know its latest tenants.

Marina Uza lived in the neighborhood for 11 years but said she moved away last year because of issues with the home where the explosion took place: parties and people screaming on the street.

“There were too many people going in and out,” she said. “There was too much going on. I have a child, so I left.”

Around Chief Fahy’s firehouse in the Bronx, the street was closed to traffic and pedestrians. Another group of firefighters dropped off food.

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“It’s a terrible loss for the Fahy family; it’s a loss for the Fire Department family,” Mr. Nigro said. “He was doing what fire officers do.”

Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, J. David Goodman, Christine Hauser, Kate Pastor, Nikita Stewart and William K. Rashbaum.

A version of this article appears in print on September 28, 2016, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Fire Dept. Battalion Chief Dies in Bronx Blast After Report of Gas Leak. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

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