Union Spars With FDNY Over Helicopter, Deutsche Fire

Fire union officials are sparring with the city's fire department over whether a helicopter could have helped during a seven-alarm fire in the former Deutsche Bank building in which two firefighters died.

The fire department often borrows police helicopters during major high-rise fires to help with communication and sometimes uses them to dump water on a blaze. But fire union officials said yesterday that the FDNY should have its own aircraft, a proposal fire department officials say has been considered and discarded in years past.

According to the firefighters union president, Steve Cassidy, Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta ignored one such proposal brought to him in 2005 by a group of fire captains and chiefs who had researched the use of helicopters in response to the September 11 Commission Report.

"This proposal offered solutions, and yet the fire commissioner of the city of New York failed to act," Mr. Cassidy said at a news conference yesterday.

Mr. Scoppetta said yesterday that he was unaware of the specific plan from 2005, but downplayed an assertion by Mr. Cassidy that a helicopter could have helped put out the Deutsche Bank fire last month.

A fire official noted yesterday that it is both tricky and unsafe to use a helicopter to fight fires among the dense skyscrapers of Manhattan — although one was used to monitor conditions during the fire at the former bank building.

A helicopter would also be prohibitively expensive to maintain, Mr. Scoppetta said.

Firefighters had no access to water for about an hour on the upper floors of the building because a standpipe had been detached and the sprinkler system was broken. The building is being dismantled because it was ripped open and showered with toxic dust when the World Trade Center across the street collapsed in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

City and state officials agreed to begin resealing the building yesterday at the same time as they make changes required by the fire department, according to a spokeswoman from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has argued with city officials over whether the resealing, meant to prevent further contaminants from escaping, should be done before the fire department changes are made.