Yesterday morning, firefighter Eddie Bohan was driving on the Northern State Parkway on his day off when he saw an SUV on fire. Bohan broke into the car and pulled out the driver, 58-year-old John Collymore, who had crashed into a lightpole. The firefighter, assigned to Engine 44 on the UES, first tried to his elbow to break into the vehicle, but ended up taking a metal mile marker to smash the glass. Collymore's daughter......

An early morning two-alarm fire in an apartment building at 1001 Ocean Avenue (near Newkirk) in Brooklyn injured several residents. WABC 7 reports seven members of the same family were seriously injured--two children suffered first- and second-degree burns--and a "pregnant woman and a 56-year-old man" jumped from the second floor. Some firefighters were also injured in the blaze.......

Last night around 10:50 p.m., heavy smoke was reported at the landmark James A Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue. Dozens of people were evacuated as the city's only 24-hour postal service branch was shut down so firefighters could locate the cause. ...

Approximately 100 people marched from the under-deconstruction Deutsche Bank building yesterday to City Hall Park, demanding stricter safety standards at construction sites. Some of the leaders of the march were Joseph Graffagnino Sr. and his wife, the parents of one of two firefighters (Graffagnino Jr. and Robert Beddia) who died when the Deutsche Bank building caught fire, and because of a lack of adherence to fire and building safety codes they ran out of oxygen......

Investigators looking for the cause in Sunday's fatal Queens fire now suspect that the ex-girlfriend of the most recent victim may have started the fire. It is believed Agnes Bermudez doused William Salazar with an accelerant, possibly carpet cleaner. Salazar died from his injuries yesterday. Video showed Salazar and Bermudez both on fire. Bermudez, a 48-year-old former stock trader, had recently broken up with Salazar and, according to family members, the split was an amicable......

Two men were found dead when firefighters arrived to battle a fire in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island. The fire at a vacant building was so intense that it took firefighters two hours to get it under control. The fire looks suspicious, and the authorities are investigating whether the men died before or during the fire. Additionally, the building is one of three that was given the go-ahead for demolition last month by the......

The fire in a three-story building that killed one yesterday morning has claimed two more deaths. A 58-year-old man was in an apartment, dead of smoke inhalation and his wife and 20-year-old son died later at a hospital. According to the Post, FDNY believe the fire is suspicious; it "broke out between the second and third floors of a building in Middle Village, Queens--"not near any electrical outlets." Five others were seriously injured, including one......

Early this morning, a fire ripped through a three story building with a store on the ground floor and apartments above. There has been one reported fatality so far, with three people critically injured and four more residents seriously injured. The proprietor of the ground floor deli said two people ran onto his store while on fire. He was able to douse them with water The seven injured survivors have all been hospitalized. Witnesses described......

After the roof over her head burned to the ground, Shaniqua Tompkins found herself in court where a Manhattan judge ruled that she owes Fifty Cent $4,500 for May rent that she never paid (previously a judge ruled she owed double that for past due rents). The NY Post reports that she has until Friday to come up with the cash."She better pay it by the end of the week. Do you understand?" Edmead told......

Earlier this year it was reported that 50 Cent wanted his ex-girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, and their son out of his Dix Hills, Long Island home (a wish he had enforced by a judge). While 50 didn't live there, the deed is in his name, and he pays Tompkins $6,700 a month, including cash for her to find a new home for their son and her boyfriend (who has been living under the rapper's roof). Now......

Who do you sue when you get badly burned after lighting your cigarette with a stove's burner? Well, if you're Staten Island resident Joel Lederman, you'll sue Macy's because it sold a dangerous shirt. The Staten Island Advance reports that Lederman filed a lawsuit against Macy's for selling a "light-blue, 100-percent cotton Club Room by Charter Club T-shirt " which had a chemical finish that "behaved as an accelerant." The lawsuit claims the shirt was......

A 7-year-old Manhattan boy is hospitalized today with burns over 70% of his body after an attempt to make S'mores in a Murray Hill basement went horribly wrong. As opposed to the usual case of youthful misadventure, responsibility for the boys injuries appears to lie with a supervising parent, who allegedly threw a volatile flammable liquid on an open flame, which exploded in the boy's face. The boy was roasting S'mores with a friend on......

Scaremongering just hit a whole new level underground, with Subivor -- the subway survival kit. The website (after a short video montage of all the ways the subway will ultimately become your tomb) warns straphangers:Dear Subway Commuters, Did you know that there are hundreds of subway related fires that occur each year? Did you know that there are 27,817 structural fires that occur each year, that's an average of 2,318 per month?And there's always......

Yesterday afternoon, a fire broke out at the Gristedes at Henry and Clark Streets in Brooklyn Heights. All shoppers and employees were evacuated and there were no reported injuries. According to Brooklyn Heights Blog, there was an electrical malfunction in the deli section. McBrooklyn found out from a police officer, "what the fire didn't get, the water from the Fire Department did" (the basement is flooded). There's also a large apartment building attached to the......

Almost all of the injuries suffered by tenants in Thursday night's high rise fire on the Lower East Side were preventable and the result of panic and poor decision making by residents. In addition to the 30 firefighters who reported injuries fighting the blaze on Grand St., 16 tenants of the 26 story building were injured--two seriously. FDNY officials say that all of the injuries to the tenants could have been avoided. Roy Holloway was......

Last night, a three-alarm fire broke out on the 3rd floor of a 26-story building at 460 Grand Street. Firefighters issued a mayday call "firefighters became confused and disoriented in the heavy smoke and complex layout" of the apartment where the fire may have started. One resident said her apartment filled with smoke within 5-10 minutes, and the smoke filled the building up to the 26th floor. Two residents trying to escape by elevator were......

Police arrested a man for allegedly starting a fire that disrupted traffic along the Henry Hudson Parkway yesterday. The blaze required 60 firefighters to extinguish. While no one was injured, but the median between the north- and south-bound parkways were blocked for an hour as 12 FDNY units were required to put out the urban wildfire. The suspected arsonist is a homeless man believed to be emotionally disturbed. The fire was noticed as park staff......

Police and firefighters are investigating the cause of death of a man who died late yesterday evening in the Bronx. The two standout theories are that he died because he was on fire or because he may have been shot. The still-unidentified man stumbled in the first floor hallway of the Eastchester Houses on Adee Ave. in the Bronx around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night; he was on fire and collapsed. Responding firefighters declared him dead......

The relative merits of automobiles versus mass transit are frequently debated by New Yorkers, but rarely do the two modes of transport become physically opposed to each other, as they did yesterday in Brooklyn. Service on the N line was suspended for a few hours early yesterday morning, after a car jumped the curb at 63rd St. near the New Utrecht Ave. subway station, traversed the sidewalk, crashed through a chain link fence, and fell......

The Bronx DA's office says an 83-year-old engineer lied about using steel in a building that caught fire and collapsed and left two firefighters dead in 2006. Jose Vargas, who pleaded not guilty, was arraigned in court yesterday. The three-alarm fire broke out at a 99-cent store on Walton Avenue on August 27, 2006; the building's roof and first floor collapsed, killing Lieutenant Howard Carpluk Jr. and firefighter Michael Reilly. Vargas, who signed inspection papers......

Image of firefighters trying to put out overturned fuel tanker fire in Queens from WNBC A two-alarm fire was ignited on the Van Wyck Expressway when a tanker crashed near North Conduit Avenue - and JFK Airport - around noon. The driver could not escape and died in the blaze. The was extinguished by 1:30PM, but WCBS 2 reported, "A sea of foam covered the ramp and surrounding ground area, even catching fire at......

After being fired for speaking to a reporter, a lawyer who had represented a slain firefighter's family in their lawsuit against the city is now suing the widow and her children. Way to keep those bad stereotypes about lawyers going! After the summer's deadly Deutsche Bank fire, where firefighters Robert Beddia, 56, and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died, their families indicated they would sue for up to $180 million. Which would be a payday for any......

After two fires with fatalities and one with a firefighter injury, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and City Councilman Leroy Comrie expressed outrage over the FDNY's response to Queens fires. They say the new pilot dispatch program is endangering lives. UFA head Steve Cassidy says the fire response time in Queens is 5 minutes, which is the slowest in the city. Plus, the new policy gives too few details - mainly the address, not details like......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

Yesterday, a two-alarm fire broke out in a Corona home and after firefighters put it out, they found the body of 5-year-old Jason Guallpa, curled up behind a TV. The police later arrested his 24-year-old brother Diego with endangering the welfare of a child. Diego Guallpa was supposed to be baby-sitting his younger brother, but he decided to meet his accountant and file his tax returns. He left little Jason in the home alone (a......

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed $464,600 in fines over two contractors' safety lapses at the Deutsche Bank building. Contractor Bovis Lend Lease, which had been retained by the state government, and its former subcontractor John Galt Corporation had been dismantling the building when a seven-alarm fire, caused by a worker's smoking, broke out last August. Two firefighters died during the blaze, it was revealed pieces of the standpipe (which lets water for firefighters......

Crazy! Gowanus Lounge posted this video of a car on fire in the Greenwood Heights section of Brooklyn. The video shows the FDNY extinguishing the fire, and GL followed up with an eyewitness account from Greenwood Heights resident Aaron Brashear (who's also in the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights). Brashear said when he looked outside, some teenage girls were yelling, "*Oh, sh*t, that's our car*!" He added that another "long time resident swore it......

Yesterday morning, a fire broke out in Fort Greene apartment, where seven family members lived. The NY Post reports three relatives - a father and his two sons - were saved by a "Brooklyn vagrant on a breakfast beer run." Dubbed "SUPERTRAMP" in the headline, Andre Nash had just bought two cans of beer when a boy was asking for help and pointing to the the 11th floor of a building at the Lafayette Gardens......

The sister of the 23-year FDNY veteran who died during the Deutsche Bank building last August is suing city agencies and contractors, citing their "wanton, willful, and reckless conduct" in his death. The Deutsche Bank building had been undergoing a slow dismantling process, and a worker's cigarette likely started the 7-alarm fire. Robert Beddia, 53, (pictured) and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died on the 14th floor, when they ran out of oxygen (the FDNY tapes are......

How do you get rid of an unwanted fire truck? Simple, put it on Craigslist! That is exactly what the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC) did with an unused 1993 Pierce aerial platform truck they inherited from the Coast Guard when the city-state agency took control over Governors Island in 2003. They got over $75,000 from the East Prospect Fire Company in York County, Pennsylvania near Lancaster. That is a pretty good deal......