Damaged Skyscraper Near Ground Zero Suffers Major Fire, Doesn't Collapse

A seven-alarm fire ripped through an abandoned skyscraper next to ground zero in Lower Manhattan Saturday, killing two firefighters who were responding to the blaze.

Officers at the scene were preventing nearby residents from returning to their homes, telling them that authorities were concerned the former Deutsche Bank office building, vacant since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks turned it into a toxic nightmare, could fall. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that fear turned out to be unfounded.

The plume of gray smoke that trailed above the site of the World Trade Center raised concerns that toxic substances in the building could be spreading.

Bloomberg sought to reassure residents that the chemicals in the building likely did not present a significant health risk, saying air-quality tests so far showed no danger.
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Construction crews had already dismantled 14 of the building's 40 stories — reaching the 26th floor on Tuesday. Some firefighters used stairs to reach the burning upper floors of the building, just steps from where 343 firefighters lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Smoke pouring from the burning building was visible from midtown Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

The acrid smell of smoke, which hung over the neighborhood for days after Sept. 11, returned to lower Manhattan along with the wail of emergency vehicles. More than three dozen fire vehicles, with more than 160 firefighters, responded to the blaze as pieces of burning debris fell from the building to the streets.

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"We heard this crashing," said Elizabeth Hughes, who saw the fire start from her rooftop deck across from the tower. "And then a huge fire that went up three floors fast. It was massive.
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The 1.4-million square foot office tower was contaminated with toxic dust and debris after the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed into it. Bloomberg said the chemicals in the building did not present a significant health risk.
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Of course I have to wonder if at this point, part of the "toxic" "contamination" is radioactive debris.

Amateur videos of the fire:



More here (NYTimes):

The building had stood as a ghost since parts of the south tower of the World Trade Center came crashing into it nearly six years ago, leaving it severely damaged and filled with toxic debris, including asbestos, dioxin, lead and chromium.

The ongoing demolition and abatement of those substances created difficulties for firefighters trying to reach and extinguish the fire, which started on the 17th floor, allowing the blaze to mushroom out of control, fire officials said. The building did not have a working standpipe, which run through high rise buildings to provide a source of water for firefighters.

"This was a truly difficult fire," Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scopetta said. "We had to lift lines from the street, with ropes in order to get it up to the 17th floor."

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the building, which was still in flames late into the evening, was structurally sound and not in danger of collapsing. He also said preliminary air-quality tests showed a rise in particulate matter but no hazardous contaminants, though he cautioned that results of more complete tests would not be available until Sunday morning.

This slideshow of the dismantling process is interesting too.