It (WTC7) had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we wouldn’t lose any more people… ~ Chief of the NYC Fire Department Dan Nigro
The following extracts paint a vivid and dire picture concerning the fate of WTC 7 as the firemen assessed it.
A short note first on where I got these interviews:
On the New York Times web site is posted a PDF file recording an interview, conducted only months after 9/11, with a certain Fire Chief (the initial link may have been found via Mark Roberts), but I quickly discovered that this file was one of hundreds of such official interviews that had been made with fire-fighters and other rescue responders in the months after 9/11. With some playing around, I was able to download an entire 407 such PDF interviews. The first is named: 9110100.PDF, and the last is named 9110511.PDF (all the rest are in numerical order … 9110111.PDF, 9110112.PDF etc.). These interviews are all titled: “WORLD TRADE CENTER TASK FORCE INTERVIEW,” and they then give the name of the interviewee, such as: “DEPUTY CHIEF HOWARD HILL” (9110311.PDF), and then: “Interview Date: December 10, 2001.” This zip file contains a folder with all the (PDF format) interviews I found that talked of WTC7 (they always say something like 7 World Trade Center so it was easy to search on this). It is quite fascinating to see that the assessment of expert firefighters on this day was that they were expecting WTC7 to fall.
Firefighter Eugene Kelty Jr.
The north end bridge had collapsed on the street, blocking the whole street, and we were just – there were units all over the place. People were all over the place. I didn’t know who they were. Because at the time we had a problem with as far as determining who was who, because equipment was being borrowed from all firehouses. And 7 World Trade was burning up at the time. We could see it. There was concern. I had gone up to take a look at it, because I knew that the telephone company building, which is 140 West Street, was next to 7 World Trade Center, and there was a concern that if 7 World Trade came down, what would happen to this building? We went in there, we checked it out. There were some people in there. We made them evacuate and I went in the back to see what was happening. The fire at 7 World Trade was working its way from the front of the building northbound to the back of the building. There was no way there could be water put on it, because there was no water in the area. I went back and I reminded whoever the…
Captain Anthony Varriale
At that time, other firefighters started showing up, Deputy Battalion Chief Paul Ferran of the 41 Battalion, and James Savastano of the First Division assigned to the Second Battalion showed up and we attempted to search and extinguish, at the time which was small pockets of fire in 7 World Trade Center. We were unaware of the damage in the front of 7, because we were entering from the northeast entrance. We weren’t aware of the magnitude of the damage in the front of the building. We made searches. We attempted to put some of the fire out, but we had a pressure problem. I forget the name of the Deputy. Some Deputy arrived at the scene and thought that the building was too dangerous to continue with operations, so we evacuated number 7 World Trade Center. At that time, some of my members went with another officer, I don’t remember who it was, to try and search the collapse of – I guess…
Dan Nigro, Chief of the Department
The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was the collapse had damaged 7 World Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we wouldn’t lose any more people.
The following citation is about the twin towers, not WTC 7, but it is instructional none the less about how unrealistic it is to put out multiple story fires in high-rises:
(pg 14) I stated to Chief Ganci on the way there that I didn’t believe we could extinguish the fire. Q. That was based on what? A. The number of floors I think. The volume of fire on the number of floors. To my recollection, we had never put out a fire that involved that many floors in a high rise building in this city before. I think more or less the direction of - in both towers ended up, evacuation was the main, the initial concern. Get as many people out of the building as we could.
Captain Ray Goldbach
We walked all the way back down to Vesey Street. There was a big discussion going on at that point about pulling all of our units out of 7 World Trade Center. Chief Nigro didn’t feel it was worth taking the slightest chance of somebody else getting injured. So at that point we made a decision to take all of our units out of 7 World Trade Center because there was a potential for collapse.
Q. It was on fire, correct, Captain?
A. Yes, it was on fire at that time. Then they said it suffered some form of structural damage. These things were going on at the same time. The fact that we thought we found Ganci and Feehan and his place at 7 World Trade Center. Made the decision to back everybody away, took all the units and moved them all the way back toward North End Avenue, which is as far I guess west as you could get on Vesey Street, to keep them out of the way.
Firefigher Kevin Martin
Q. Right. That’s North End Avenue and Vesey Street and that’s some distance from the collapse?
A. Yes, there was a lot of cars on fire there. There was scaffolding around the phone company. That was on fire. There was a section of the building that was knocked out, a beam, a steel girder went through the side of it. 7 World Trade Center was on fire. So we were working right in here with the hose line –
Firefigher Brian Fitzpatrick
… the West Side Highway because there was an imminent collapse on 7 World Trade, and it did collapse. As far as other companies, I don’t know. I knew from sticking my head out the window going down that we were by 35 and 40. I think they were ahead of us when we pulled in. I’m sorry. 35 Truck and I can’t remember the engine down there, 25, 74, I think 47 was there.
Lieutenant Anthony Mancusco
Again, after that came down we knew we had all our members. We went back to some of the rubble from that and we had worked in that area for a short time and then we were told to keep feeding a couple of the tower ladders they had in front of 6 World Trade. They just didn’t want anybody operating there. I think they were fearing about 7 World Trade coming down. So then we kept augmenting tower ladders and staying away from that collapse area.
Assistant Chief Harold Meyers
A. Yes, he did. Chief Nigro directed me to continue monitoring conditions at the site. Specifically to monitor number 7 World Trade Center. We were very concerned with the collapse potential there, and to do whatever I could do to ensure site safety in that no additional people became injured. Also, to do what I could while up at the site to organize some sort of command or control. Q. Considering handy talkie communications, you could only comment obviously following the seconds collapse because before that you were not on the scene.
Lieutenat Rudolf Weindler
The next thing I did was we saw a fire starting to show at windows in 7 World Trade Center, decided to go in and try and see if there was anybody in the building and/or put out the fires,and we did a search from floor to floor of 7 World Trade Center passing fire on floors 3, 7, 9. The standpipes had no water. We tried to extinguish a few fires with cans. When we got to 11, there was just too much smoke and we decided that, without water, if we went any higher, we’d be on fool’s mission. So we left 7 World Trade Center, back down to the street, where I ran into Chief Coloe from the 1st Division, Captain Varriale, Engine 24, and Captain Varriale told Chief Coloe and myself that 7 World Trade Center was badly damaged on the south side and definitely in danger of collapse. Chief Coloe said we were going to evacuate the collapse zone around 7 World Trade Center, which we did. At that point there were fires in, I guess, all of the smaller buildings in the Trade Center complex. The only place we had any water was in the Church Street Post Office, where we hooked up some house lines. They were just a bunch of firemen, some…