My younger Buff years

[80sQueensbuff]

I somehow never really looked at this thread too much until the last month or so, when I read through all 93 pages, and looked at most of the links to videos and audio recordings. I can't believe I didn't look at it before. It is truly amazing to get the first hand stories from both the firefighters and the buffs. I started listening to the radio around 1975 on a multiband radio then various scanners. I was just listening to the Gettin' Salty podcast with Warren Fuchs, and they played the recording from the Knickerbocker fire. As soon as I heard the first few seconds of that I recognized it as I was listening as it happened. I was in my teens, and when the second alarm was transmitted, it was obvious something big was happening. I looked out the window of my bedroom near Fresh Meadows in Queens, and there was already a huge cloud of smoke visible. Somewhere in my apartment, which I am trying to keep from being a Collyer's mansion, I have a recording of some of that fire and others that happened around that time. It was on cheap audio tape, and about 20 years ago I reached out to Frank Raffa, and brought it to him and he was able to digitize it. That was the only time I recall hearing the units on the radio sounding like a disaster was unfolding. I drove through the area the following March, and took these photos. I wish I had known there were other people with this interest back then!

 

[captaindewey50267021@gm]

I was working as a firefighter in TL-18 on Manhattan's Lower East Side from 1977 to 1988. Back in 1977 often responded to multiple alarms in Brooklyn, because our firehouse was located right next to the Manhattan Bridge on Manhattan's, Delancey St. In July of 1977 we were special called as an additional Tower Ladder to Brooklyn box 277. Eventually this fire went to at least 11 or 12 alarms and at its height involved 32 buildings, most of which were Row Frames but also included many other Brick buildings including a factory and a former theatre converted into a worship center church. Upon arrival we were ordered to position above a McDonalds located just under the Myrtle Ave. El train, and attack fire on 3 sides of our position. The tender of the Super Pumper was operating into the fully involved factory, and numerous Stang deck guns and multiple Tower Ladders from Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. See W.N.Y.F. magazine article "Bushwick is Burning". The fire happen only one week before, or maybe after the "Great NYC Blackout of 1977" Captain Bob Rainey FDNY Engine 26 retired