Search Continues, Frustration Grows Clinton Announces He Will Attend Service

Also See: Related Video & Memorial Service Information

The Associated Press

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) -- President Bill Clinton will attend Thursday's memorial service for the six firefighters who died in the tragic warehouse fire, Worcester Congressman Jim McGovern said this morning.

''President Clinton's visit will be very meaningful for the people of this city,'' McGovern said in a prepared statement. ''He has a unique ability to bring people together and lift their spirits. Obviously I wish he were coming under happier circumstances, but we're very pleased he has chosen to make time in his busy schedule to be with our city.''

Firefighters from throughout the country are expected to attend.

AP World Wide Photos/Julia Malakie A crew of firefighters is seen tethered together, Monday morning, Dec. 6, 1999 in Worcester, Mass., as they prepare to search the debris of a cold storage warehouse for the bodies of five Worcester firefighters missing and presumed dead, who were lost while battling a general alarm fire at the warehouse Friday evening. Six firefighters perished in the blaze. One body has been located.

Recovery crews, aided by dogs and spotlights but hampered by rain, continued to search for five missing firefighters, finding no sign of them but vowing to continue the effort throughout the day. So far, the body of only one firefighter has been found and removed.

No cause of the fire has been found and investigators said the probe at this point was secondary to recovering the bodies.

The search was halted for much of Monday when officials ordered firefighters out of the burned-out, five-story downtown warehouse as a 130-foot crane dismantled an 80-foot firewall that threatened to collapse. Some had to be restrained from going back in.

''This is our battlefield. Until we bring them home, there's going to be some level of frustration,'' said Frank Raffa, president of Worcester Firefighters Local 1009.

A spokesman for Firehouse.Com, a fire service Internet resource based in College Park, Md., said since Friday at 10 p.m., an estimated 100,000 people from around the world have visited the Web site.

Clinton declared the area in a state of emergency, opening up funds to support personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency assisting in the search for bodies.

As 75 firefighters and 175 civilians waited for the crane to demolish the firewall, new details emerged about the events leading to the deaths of the six firefighters Friday night.

AP World Wide Photos/Julia Malakie Firefighters pick through debris, Monday, Dec. 6, 1999 at the fire aftermath scene in Worcester, Mass., where six firefighters died Friday evening inside a former cold storage warehouse, battling a general alarm blaze.

District Chief Michael McNamee, the first officer to arrive on the scene, offered the first working theory of how the fire spread and why it suddenly engulfed the building in what he called ''black, hot, boiling smoke.''

The building, the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co., was built to hold in cold and therefore held in heat, as well, said McNamee. The 18-inch brick walls were lined with 6-inch cork and, in many of the maze-like compartments, Sheetrock had been sprayed with polyurethane foam, a petroleum product, he said.

''The theory is when the fire spread to where the polyurethane was that's when we got hit with the heavy smoke,'' McNamee said.

It was in that atmosphere that firefighters who had entered the building in three two-man teams to look for homeless people were evacuated, he said.

Paul A. Brotherton, 41, and Jeremiah M. Lucey, 38, were discovered missing during a roll call, McNamee said.

Rescue teams went back in to find the two men, sweeping the third, fourth and fifth floors three or four times, he said.

Suddenly he heard a call from Ladder Company 2 one-half of the crew trying to reach the other half.

AP World Wide Photos/Julia Malakie Suzanne Glasberg of Worcester, Mass., holds her 3-year-old son, Zachre, Monday, Dec. 6, 1999, as they stand next to a fire truck covered with flowers, wreaths and memorial notes in tribute to the six firefighters who died in a nearby warehouse fire Friday evening

''They called again. They called again. They called again. No answer. We were missing four,'' McNamee said. Lt. Thomas E. Spencer, 42, and Timothy P. Jackson, 51, were lost, he said. He ordered the rest of the firefighters to leave the building.

''I had to make the call. We had to get out,'' said McNamee, who referred to the warehouse as ''the building from hell.''

''At that point we were down four and I didn't want to lose more,'' McNamee said.

It was only later, after roll call was taken, that he realized James F. Lyons, 34, and Joseph T. McGuirk, 38, were also missing.

Early Monday morning, searchers found the badge of Jackson, a 27-year veteran, whose body was removed from the smoldering ruins Sunday.

Mayor Raymond Mariano said the entire city of 170,000 was grieving and offering to help the 17 children left fatherless by the fire.

''It's been pretty overwhelming. It's been very emotional,'' Mariano said. ''I don't know if we will ever heal. I don't know if the fire department will ever be the same. I don't know if I'll ever be the same.''

Out of respect for the victims' families, the annual state Firefighter of the Year awards presentation was postponed from today until a date to be announced