BRAD HUNTER
NY Post Online
October 18, 2001 -- Heavy-hearted firefighters battled a major Queens blaze yesterday - one of the biggest since the attacks on the World Trade Center last month decimated the FDNY's ranks.
Firefighters at the scene of the four-alarm fire at an Astoria furniture factory said they took a "business as usual" approach to the inferno despite losing more than 300 brothers Sept. 11.
Everything is the same but everything is different.
"It just doesn't feel like much," firefighter John Hartman of Engine 317 in The Bronx told The Post. "It's a BS job dumping water. We ought to be at the WTC looking for the boys."
The fire at Gothic Cabinet Craft at 27-50 1st St. raged out of control for more than nine hours, causing minor injuries to two firefighters, the FDNY said.
The 32-year-old company makes inexpensive wooden furniture particularly popular with college students.
FDNY personnel said they tackled the fire like they would any other.
"It's business as usual," said Lt. John Zaccaria of Engine 60 in The Bronx, adding that the firefighters have extinguished hundreds of similar blazes over the years.
But that didn't mean the tear-stained memories of the trade center disaster have magically gone away. Nearly every firefighter at yesterday's factory fire was on the scene when the Twin Towers collapsed, instantly evaporating decades of friendship and brotherhood.
"It's still very heart-wrenching," the 20-year FDNY vet said. "We just concentrate on what we're doing. The volunteers have been helpful so we can go to as many funerals as possible - every firefighter deserves a fireman's funeral."
The blaze, which began at 1:30 a.m., shot flames and plumes of smoke into the sky that were visible from Manhattan and The Bronx.
The building was unoccupied when the fire began but more than 300 firefighters were at the scene, keeping flames from spreading to nearby buildings.
The cause was unknown, but it was still burning sporadically at 2:30 p.m. Firefighters continued to dump water on the four-story white building because it backs onto the East River and some of the hot spots were inaccessible.
Firefighters attacked the flames from the outside only.
Deputy Chief Stanley Dawe of the 14th Division in Corona, Queens, admitted the WTC tragedy may have been fresh in some of the firefighters' minds but, when they arrive at a scene, fear disappears.
"I don't think the guys are any more on edge, this is what they do," Dawe said at the scene.
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