Three Dead in Brooklyn Blaze; Delayed Response Questioned Again

NEW YORK - Two children and an adult have died after a blaze swept through a six-story building in Brooklyn.

The fire broke out in the top floor of the Crown Heights residence around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Firefighters had it under control by 1 p.m.

Police say the victims are a 2 year old, a 3 year old and a 43-year-old man. They were transported to an area hospital where they later died.

About 75 firefighters responded to the blaze.

The cause is under investigation.


Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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I don't suppose dispatchers have ever given the correct address and the responders went to the wrong one, huh?
When mistakes are made for whatever reasons, we need to identify the breakdown, fix it and be better the next time.
Pointing fingers never saved a life or put out a fire.
End of lesson.
And yeah; little grumpy this morning.
Need coffee.
TCSS.
Art
Check STATter911.com for an update to this story. Calling party had very little idea of the fire's exact location; father in fire is believed to have tried putting out fire instead of calling 9-1-1 first.
Another article also alludes to the fact the call was initiated by two different callers on cell phones in a proximity to the fire, but doesn't sound like they were right there.

Some breakdows I would say is...#1...if the victim did try fighting the fire on his own, vs calling 911...this has been addressed many times over, but people don't learn in many cases.

Second breakdown I see is the use of cell phones, but lack of stopping. Meaning, I can't count the number of "smoke" investigation calls we have gone on because somebody passing by calls it in....but never thought of stopping to give a better location or even check things out on their own. Sounds like this could be a case here...."Yeah, I'm at XXXX and XXXX in Brooklyn and I can see a lot of smoke "...."Do you know where the smoke is coming from?"....."I don't know it looks to be a block from here or something"... I don't know how the call came in, but probably not far off.

This has been something some of us have been addressing in our fire prevention talks and try to direct that to parents (especially with scout tours etc, moreso than day care, grade school) but perhaps that should start to be part of the fire education we do....what to do when calling from a cell phone. In the past it was easy to say go to a neighbor's house, they call....you're still in the same proximity of the fire. Cell phones...someone can see smoke from a factory and calls it in, but doesn't stick around to show the FD what they saw. Instead it seems like "I did my good deed, I called the FD, but too busy to stop".
FF can only go to where they are dispatched

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