auto dealership fire - truss roof collapsed - detective / fire buff at police station was the only one to hear the mayday due to a PL button being hit - iirc
http://www3.gendisasters.com/new-jersey/6534/hackensack-nj-fire-auto-dealer-kills-five-july-1988 - there are some photos here
http://www.boyell.com/hackensack_fire_radio_communicat.htm - this document says the transmit crystals in the portable radios were wrong - wouldn't that have been discovered rapidly during a daily radio test?
http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/tr_96cv.pdf - this 1996 report on firefighter safety and radios specifically mentions that many civilians heard the calls for help
http://www.wusa9.com/news/columnist/blogs/2008/06/hackensack-ford-20-years-later.html - links to several items here
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/21/nyregion/report-faults-leadership-in-jersey-blaze.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all - this NYT article mentions that a civilian called Fire HQ to tell them that firefighters were calling for help on the radio
http://books.google.com/books?id=Vb41zTZQAjoC&pg=PA447&lpg=PA447&dq=hackensack+july+1988+fire&source=bl&ots=0KYKqbs_f1&sig=6yRuspFoENi7CqMy5T7LZhr_lYg&hl=en&ei=VNtwS6-yK82ztgfyj5nuCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CB8Q6AEwBzgU - this seems to be a 2008 book about firefighter safety that mentions the Hackensack incident
The following info is from a June 19, 2001 post to the fireradio list at yahoogroups.com - Hackensack, NJ, July 1988. "Firefighters using a repeater for fireground. The same repeater was used for dispatch/ alerting. A structural collapse trapped firefighters inside. Three firefighters were killed instantly. Two were alive to call for help. Scannerists heard them on the input to the repeater but they could not be heard by dispatch or the IC through the repeater because of high volumes of radio traffic on the single system. They expired after they ran out of air."