In Chaos, Firefighters Become Masters of Risk
Crews Have Fought To Shed City's Label Of Poor Work Ethic

By Elissa Silverman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 4, 2007

Firefighting involves its share of downtime, and Sunday at Engine 3 was a chance to soak up some sun in the station's driveway.

About 7:30 p.m., the firefighters and paramedics at the New Jersey Avenue station in Northwest Washington, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, sat down to eat pork roast with mashed potatoes, green beans and a salad. Units responded to an emergency medical call about 9 and then settled in for a quiet end to the 7 a.m.-to-7 a.m. shift.

Just before 1 a.m. came the call about a fire at Eastern Market.

"You go from stillness to an Indy race," said Lt. Mickey Shymansky, who corralled his four-member team and raced across Capitol Hill.

By Monday's end, more than 400 firefighters and support personnel had raced out of stations to fight blazes that ripped through two of the city's most historic buildings, Eastern Market and the Georgetown public library. The chaotic day thrust the city's Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, including the new chief, Dennis L. Rubin, into the spotlight. For some in the department, it was a chance at civic redemption.

Last year, the city's inspector general cited an "impaired work ethic" in the agency after emergency workers botched the case of David E. Rosenbaum, a New York Times reporter who died two days after he was mugged near his Northwest home.

"It was a black eye," said Shymansky, who has been a member of the department for 11 years.

Early Monday, Shymansky saw flames shooting out of the windows of the red-brick market building at Seventh and C streets SE as his engine company pulled up to the scene. The first challenge: Open the heavy green doors, which were bolted shut with padlocks and iron bars, to get an army of firefighters inside so they could directly fight the blaze.

A crew from another firetruck used sledgehammers and carbon-tipped saws to open many of the building's doors. Shymansky and his crew entered near the center of the building to mount an aggressive attack. But the fire was only getting bigger. Flames covered the walls behind the bakery and deli stands and were moving toward the roof.

"As we started to make the attack, we saw fire behind us as well," Shymansky said. "And that's not good, because you always want to keep the fire in check."

Eastern Market, with its high ceilings and vast open space, started to heat up like an oven. More than 30 firefighters were inside, lined up along hoses and blasting the walls with 600 gallons of water a minute, but the blaze was unyielding.

"It was a point of frustration because in what we were trying to do, our efforts were unsuccessful," Shymansky said later, looking at the charred building.

Fire sneaked into vents on the roof, and firefighters outside saw flames rising 15 to 20 feet in the air. The 134-year-old building, with a ceiling of plywood and tar paper and covered with slate on top, was like "a Roman candle," Shymansky said.

After about 15 minutes of battle, the air horn sounded, ordering firefighters to evacuate. Battalion Chief Roy Ridgeway, the highest-ranking officer on the scene, decided that the risk of a roof collapse was too great.

The strategy turned from offensive to defensive, with firefighters hoisted on 110-foot ladders outside blasting more than 3,000 gallons of water a minute from the trucks onto the building.

The downside was that fighting a blaze from within is what most firefighters live for.

"Our firefighters and EMTs want to be inside. They want to be hitting the fire head-on," said Assistant Fire Chief Lawrence Schultz. "It's difficult for them to retreat."

Schultz, a 22-year veteran, had been awakened by a phone call when the blaze was upgraded to two-alarm status, and he listened to emergency radio transmissions as he drove along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Fighting fires is a calculated risk, and when he saw flames leaping out of the vents as he approached the scene, he was "very, very pleased" with Ridgeway's decision to evacuate.

After 2 1/2 hours, Schultz declared the fire under control. Authorities said electrical problems caused the fire.

But hot spots continued to flare up more than eight hours later, as Schultz and Rubin, whose appointment wouldn't even be confirmed until the next day, stood before television cameras at noon at department headquarters to talk about something else entirely: that two members of the department involved in the Rosenbaum case had been disciplined.

The news conference had just ended when Schultz jumped into his red Ford Crown Victoria and headed for Wisconsin Avenue and R Street NW. A fire at the Georgetown library had become a two-alarmer.

That's when Truck 12 barreled out of the Tenleytown station and raced south along Wisconsin. Sgt. Theodore Robinson saw thick black smoke on the horizon. The dark color signaled to him that the fire was blazing and had not been hit with significant amounts of water.

"I told everybody, 'Get ready. It's off,' " Robinson said. The description tells firefighters that the blaze is a big one.

Robinson's five-member crew that day was an RIT, or a rapid intervention team, which helps get firefighters out of imminent danger.

When Truck 12 arrived on the scene, fire officials had already made the call to go defensive.

Two ladder trucks blasted the building from the front, and two were positioned in the back.

A library staff member approached Schultz, telling him that the library's Peabody Room, on the second floor, contained precious documents and artifacts.

A cupola in the center of the roof had already fallen, and Schultz feared that sending a crew in would be too much of a gamble. Nonetheless, he made an unusual decision: to give the historical documents a level of protection usually afforded only to people. He sent in Special Operations Chief Craig Baker and about 10 other men.

"I was a bit nervous," Schultz said, but he was confident that Baker wouldn't take unnecessary risks.

The crew quickly covered the Peabody Room with salvage covers -- plastic tarps to help guard against water damage.

On the way out, Baker and his crew grabbed whatever paintings, maps and other documents they could carry. The efforts were worth it. Fire officials later said that despite catastrophic roof damage, about 80 percent of the documents in the Peabody Collection can be saved.

And the ceiling of the room, on the building's eastern side, remained intact even as nearby steel beams were twisted by the intense heat.

How the ceiling remained "defies logic," Schultz said. Authorities said yesterday that the fire was accidentally caused by workers renovating the building. No one was hurt in either of Monday's fires.

For Schultz, who at the age of 12 knew what he wanted to be after he watched a documentary about firefighters titled "We're No Heroes," the day displayed the talents and dedication of the agency.

"We've had a tough year," he said. But "on Monday, the citizens of the District of Columbia saw how talented and committed 99.9 percent of our personnel are."