A 72-year-old wheelchair-bound Bronx woman is suing the fire department for laughing and injuring her after she called them for help last March, the Post reports. The ex-husband of two-hundred pound Ziola Garcia called 911 after her "self-powered" wheelchair, which elevates 3½ feet to allow her to reach objects, got stuck in the "up" position. But it was all a big joke to the firemen who responded, she alleges: "They were laughing at me, making......

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......

James Maietta probably wishes that he lived in an elevator building; especially after firefighters accidentally dropped him down a flight of stairs in November 2006. The 15-foot fall left Maietta crippled and confined to a Yonkers nursing home for a year. Now the man is suing the FDNY. The incident occurred on November 23, 2006, after Maietta called 911 with health complaints and asked to be taken to a hospital. The man weighs 515 pounds,......

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......

This evening, there was a two-alarm fire at the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the "Largest Food Distribution Center in the World," is where many meat and meat products are processed and distributed in the tri-state area. Over 100 firefighters were on the scene to fight the fire and the main fire has been extinguished. No injuries have been reported yet and the Fire Department does not know the......

Yesterday, separate fires in Harlem and in the Bronx each claimed a life. The fire in the Bronx occurred at 1317 West Farms Road around 11AM. An elderly man was found in his living room apartment; three other residents treated at a hospital. The FDNY believes the fire was accidental. Around 6AM, the Harlem fire on West 127th Street was reported. A woman was found dead on the top floor of a vacant building and......

Untitled, by Blaise K at flickr A week after the illegally converted-for-residential use warehouse 475 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg was evacuated by city agencies, due to building violations including an illegal matzoh bakery (and combustible grains being stored in the basement), the building will be padlocked this afternoon at 4PM. There will be a "solemn observance of the shutting of a great arts community," according to a press release we received. More details:Come and......

Satellite map rendering of 475 Kent Avenue from Live Search Maps Over 150 residents of an eleven-story building at Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg were evacuated yesterday after the Fire Department and Buildings Department found a number of violations. The building had been illegally converted to residences and a matzoh factory, complete with two silos of (highly combustible) grain in the basement. A neighboring building was cited as well, and the violations ranged from......

Another pot farm bites the dust: A small fire in Queens led the Fire Department to over 200 marijuana plants growing inside a home. The FDNY wanted to inspect some smoking utility lines and entered another home at 61-20 Bleecker Street to turn off the electricity. When they got to Ridgewood home's basement, they found 217 pot plants, ranging in height from 2 to 6 feet, plus three illegal propane tanks. The home's occupant who......

An explosion in a Long Island man's basement damaged sheet rock and spread broken glass while shredding a soft cooler Saturday evening, causing Long Island emergency personnel to respond in force. The bomb scare was the result of a show-and-tell gone awry. Francisco Lopes is a researcher at Stony Brook University, who said that he brought home some pieces of dry ice in a sealed glass jar to show his daughter. He left the container......

A memo from FDNY Operations Chief Patrick McNally is instructing firefighters to conduct inspections of buildings under construction or demolition on two different timetables, depending on their height. City rules have long mandated that all buildings going up or coming down had to be inspected by the fire department every 15 days. McNally's memo now instructs firefighters to inspect buildings over 75 feet tall every 15 days, and below 75 feet tall every 30 days.......

The Fire Department revealed statistics showing that response times have decreased for the third year in a row. The 2007 average response time, based on 490,767 calls, was 4 minutes and 49 seconds (for FDNY & EMS services). In 2006, the average response time was 4 minutes, 54 seconds and in 2005 it was 5 minutes, 9 seconds. Response time is a general term for any sort of vehicle to come on the scene, not......

A FDNY lieutenant died as he and other firefighters were battling a fire in Crown Heights. Lieutenant John H. Martinson went into cardiac arrest during the 2-alarm fire on the 14th floor of the Ebbets Field Apartments. Over 100 firefighters responded to the fire, which was under control around 8:30PM - 75 minutes after the the first call. It's unclear what caused the fire (it's under investigation but does not appear to be suspicious) but......

Yesterday afternoon, the FDNY responded to a fire that broke out in a Midwood apartment building, only to find two girls, ages 1 and 2, alone. The girls' mother had left them with her boyfriend, who went out. Sigh. A neighbor noticed smoke coming from under the front door. Trina Thomas explained to the Daily News, "I ran upstairs to call the Fire Department. I had no idea there were kids by themselves at the......

We interviewed hundreds of people this year, from long-time rockers to the designer of New York’s subway map. Here are a few conversations you may have missed:On the day Radiohead’s In Rainbows was released exclusively online, musician Jonny Greenwood talked about the “experiment.” Doctor for the uninsured Jay Parkinson told us how to save $1,250 on our next MRI. Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz wondered why they can't make a quiet truck. Actor/Director John Turturro......

On Friday, dozens of birds fell out of the sky and died on a street in the Great Kills section of Staten Island. Residents grew concerned as, the Staten Island Advance reported, birds "flopped and twitched...as they breathed their last" (video here). One resident said the birds were flying "as if they were drunk" before falling to the ground. Residents were advised to stay in their homes as the fire department, police and as well......

The 9 year-old boy who perished in a house fire on Staten Island late Sunday apparently died while trying to save his pets. Tommy Monahan apparently had been with his mother as they tried to escape the fire, but he raced back to his room for his dog, lizard and fish. A 12-year-old neighbor told the Daily News, "Everybody thought he was outside but he wasn't. Monahan's father had tried to rescue him from outside......

Led Zeppelin Reunite, Songs Remain the Same Aside from a reanimated corpse Beatles reunion, there is not another dormant band in the world that could cause more excitement getting back together than Led Zeppelin. So, for the first time in 19 years, with Jason Bonham in for his late father behind the drums and the rest of the original pieces in place, the band picked up where they left off, playing a Greatest-Hits set to......

A "rising star" in the Fire Department was found with three gunshot to the head in his Staten Island home Sunday morning. The ME's office said that Douglas J. Mercereau's death was a homicide. It's believed that his 38-year-old wife, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, is a suspect (the Daily News calls her the "prime suspect"). She called 911 around 8:25AM on Sunday, saying she found her husband's body. The Staten Island Advance says the couple had "started......

At least a few buildings on or near Mercer Street lost power when a fire or an explosion occurred in a manhole at Mercer and West 3rd Street exploded this morning. The block was closed off by the Fire Department. We hear there were no injuries, but it's unclear what caused the fire. One witness saw a billowing black smoke and said it smelled "acrid, like maybe it's an electrical fire." And contributor Gideon......

After being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year over unfair hiring practices, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the number of black and Hispanic candidates has doubled in the past five years. Of the 4,000 applicants who scored highest on this year's entrance exam (22,000 took the exam, 21,000 passed), a third were black or Hispanic, up from 14% in 2002. The FDNY currently has just under 12,000 members; 666 are Hispanic, 337......

Yesterday morning's rain caused a recently installed sewer main to burst, flooding the basement and parking garage of a Battery Park City luxury apartment building. Water levels reached up to 20 feet. Not only were car owners greeted with news that their vehicles were either submerged or floating on top of sewer water, hundreds of tenants at 90 West Street were evacuated. Fire officials explained that, per WNBC, "rain flooded a re-routed sewer pipe,......

The gas main explosion that rocked a home on 48th Ave. and 41st. St. Wedneday––killing one woman and injuring six others––occurred despite what ConEd and FDNY say was them following proper procedures preceding the incident. Kunta Oza, who died at the age of 69, was burned over 90% of her body. In addition to the six others injured in the explosion, 200 people were evacuated from the block until it was deemed safe to return.......

The 69-year-old woman who was burned over 90% of her body in a gas explosion in her Sunnyside home died yesterday. City Councilman Eric Gioia said, "It is with great regret and sadness that I announce the passing of Kunta Oza. My deepest condolences go out to her entire family, and I ask that all New Yorkers keep them in their Thanksgiving prayers." On Wednesday afternoon, calls were made to 911 about a gas smell......

Yesterday afternoon, a gas explosion in a Sunnyside home burned a 67-year-old woman over 90% of her body. Six other people were also injured, as over 200 people needed to be evacuated and over a hundred firefighters responded. Kunta Oza, who lives in a three-story at 41st Street and 48th Avenue, is at New York Hospital Burn Center in critical condition. WNBC reports that she "sent her grandchildren outside as a precaution. The move might......

We love timely tips from the FDNY! The Fire Department is reminding New Yorkers that deep-frying turkeys is very, very dangerous. Why? Well, the fryers easily tip over and many fryers don't have automatic temperature control. Also, "oil may spill from the fryer onto the burner causing a fire." Underwriters Laboratories has a video of what can go wrong during turkey deep-frying and it is insane. It does seem like there's at least one deep-fried......

A fire that erupted in a two-family Rosedale home yesterday morning claimed the lives of a Corrections Department captain and her two sons. The Corrections Dept. union said that the victims were Captain Renee Chong and her two young sons. The three-alarm fire broke out before 5AM. Neighbors tried to bang on Chongs' door, but the fire spread too quickly. One described the smoke as "toxic". Colleagues report that Chong was nearing 20 years of......

This is not good timing for the Fire Department. Yesterday, two police officers noticed a fire in a West Farms house and saved its seven residents. Then, noticing that the house next door was on fire, the two cops evacuated five more people. One of the officers, Chris Scott, said that the the FDNY showed up during the second fire, and the residents lauded their efforts. Judy Ramdeen said, "They rushed into a burning building......

Last night, an unoccupied five-story hotel at 22 West 24th Street collapsed; no injuries were reported. The former La Semana Hotel "fell into itself leaving a giant, although relatively tidy, pile of rubble," according to the Post. Witnesses said the 8PM collapse sounded like a bomb explosion and that "floor by floor, the building simply gave in." A fire official told the NY Times, "If this happened during the daytime, during a workday when......

The Fire Department believes a bad connection from the gas line to the stove, not a gas leak, caused the explosion that caused a flash fire at 10 West 119th Street in Harlem on Saturday. Several people were injured, including four children and their mother who lived in the apartment. Initially, the FDNY said a gas leak on the first floor caused the blast, but Con Ed found no evidence of a gas leak. Now......