FDNY Fire Service Line of Duty Death
March 22, 1932 - LODD
Lieutenant William Kostinec Jr.
Ladder 21
FDNY. Manhattan, New York
A violent boiler explosion in the sub-cellar caught the members of Engine 26, Ladder 21, and the 3rd Division Chief. Lieutenant Kostenic died of smoke inhalation and all the other firefighters were injured in the blast. It was believed that waste benzine had come in contact with the feed line at the boiler and caused the blast and resulting two-alarm fire.
Lieutenant William Kostinec, Jr. was killed by an explosion in the basement of a building at 313 to 321 West 37th Street. Ladder 21 was the first to arrive at this two-alarm building fire. Lieutenant Kostinec led his men into the cellar. As he approached the iron door, there was an explosion that hurled everybody to the floor. The door hit Kostinec, and he died of shock and narcosis. The explosion was caused by a petroleum by-product that was in the sump of the boiler. The first explosion that caused the fire burned the boiler room man. Lieutenant Kostinec was a fifteen-year man in the Department, married and thirty-seven years old. - from “The Last Alarm”
RIP. Never forget.
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