KC Fire Department to release report on arson that killed two firefighters

Kansas City Fire Chief Paul Berardi says he will release his department’s report this week examining events leading up to the deaths of two firefighters crushed when a brick wall fell as they fought an Oct. 12 fire on Independence Boulevard.

Berardi told The Star that the department’s internal investigation into firefighting operations where the men died is an unvarnished, “warts and all” account of events the night John Mesh and Larry Leggio died.

It was always his intention, he said, to make the report public so that others in the nation’s fire service can learn from what happened on the fireground that night.

“I believe I have held that contention from the beginning,” Berardi said in an email.

Its release will be the first official explanation of why Mesh, 39, and Leggio, 43, were in the alley on the building’s east side when the collapse occurred.

The men were standing within a few feet of the wall that killed them some six minutes after commanders ordered a collapse zone established around the unstable apartment and commercial building. Residents already had been evacuated.

Industry standards suggest that all fire personnel immediately exit a collapse zone — typically an area one and a half times the height of the building — once one is ordered. The only exception would be to attempt to save someone’s life, which wasn’t an issue in this case.

Berardi said he hoped to release the report Wednesday but certainly before the end of the week.

Federal investigators are working independently on their own report. Typically, reports by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, are meant to educate the nation’s fire service.

After other fatal collapses nationwide, NIOSH repeatedly has pointed out the dangers of operating within collapse zones.

Two Kansas City firefighters were seriously injured in the collapse at the three-story building at 2608 Independence Blvd.

The nearly one-block structure had businesses on the first floor and apartments on the upper two stories.

Thu Hong Nguyen, who operated a nail salon in the building, is charged with arson and two counts of second-degree murder in the case. She has pleaded not guilty.

The fire was reported shortly before 7:30 p.m. Multiple fire companies responded.

Mesh and Leggio, and a few other firefighters, were battling the blaze in an alley about 30 feet wide that separated the building from Snyder’s supermarket.

Earlier, several groups of firefighters entered the building to look for occupants and douse flames. Two people were rescued from the second floor before conditions deteriorated and the incident commander ordered all personnel out.

About 11 minutes after that order, the commander called for establishing a collapse zone. Such an order means everyone in proximity to the burning building is supposed to retreat. The collapse zone included the alley between the building and the grocery.

But Mesh and Leggio and as many as four other firefighters were in the zone when the wall collapsed. Leggio, a ladder truck driver, was using a pike pole to clear a fan from a window so Mesh, a firefighter, could spray water inside.

One firefighter who was seriously injured told The Star that he did not hear the emergency tones that sounded to notify firefighters of the collapse zone announcement.

Four minutes after the collapse zone was ordered, the commander who issued that order was informed via radio that firefighters remained in the alley. Yet on the radio traffic recording, no one questioned why the firefighters were in the collapse zone.

In its report about a similar building collapse in Philadelphia in 2012 that also killed two firefighters, NIOSH said it was “unacceptable” for firefighters to remain in a collapse zone.

Kansas City fire officials have said the firefighters in the alley were trying to protect the grocery.

But NIOSH, in its Philadelphia report, said: “Obviously no building is worth a firefighter’s life.”

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "KC Fire Department to release report on arson that killed two firefighters."