FDNY Battles Blazing 4-Alarm Fire, Dogs Rescued / East 173 St Claremont, Bronx 12.18.17 

Adam, Excellent video and reporting on your part. One of you very best efforts to date. The past few weeks of 2017 turned out to be very tragic for both first responders and residents of the Bronx. First, we have this terrible 4th alarm fire you covered which left multiple families homeless and injured several fire fighters. Overnight during the early morning hours of December 27th there was an all hands occupied building fire in the Bronx where additional engine and ladder companies were special called which was followed by a third alarm occupied apartment building fire several miles away and finally a 4th alarm occupied apartment building fire which all resulted in leaving many families left homeless.

This was my home. I grew up in this building since the 90's. A stove on the 5th floor was busted and the pipes burst, causing flooding to the whole building and destroying everything. This is 1686 Clay Ave.

Hats off to all firefighters. I could not be anywhere near those flames. The fire fighters in the building with the flaming roof was unnerving. They were really cool and professional.

The NYC cop lady carried that puppy around is my hero

Until I watched this video, I always thought FDNY had their shit together! During an entire career in law enforcement, and as a trained fire investigator and volunteer fireman, I have never seen, nor heard of anything like I saw in this video! The fire went to four alarms because the FDNY ALLOWED it to go to four alarms! I never thought I'd see firemen, at the ready in their towers, just sit and watch the fire progress without doing any suppression at all. I've never heard of firemen doing overhaul in a ceiling with active fire directly over their heads! The Boy Scouts could have done a better job of suppressing this fire. But, then, THEY have adult leadership!

Nice job ADAM! Seems yo be a stubborn fire that didn't die down so fast... Great reporting and coverage too around the scene!

8:20

Hi JB91710, I think your wrong, my reason for this is this, I believe the building was a residential block. Yes the fire has caused a lot of damage but if the crews tried to fight the fire internally with hand lines, far less water damage is being caused, yes the crews are taking punishment but I don't know any Ff who didn't enjoyed being in the thick of it knocking down a fire. The moment you use ariel ladders that are pumping out 12-15 bar pressure, all that water is going to flood all the apartments below that were not effected by the fire and you probably ending up pumping out the basement. From my experience not everyone has insurance. As for the Ff having to put his face mask on, that could have gone 'tits up' as we say in the UK, trying to put a face mask on wearing gloves isn't easy at the best of times.

My deepest condolences to the families, may your loved ones

Not impressed at all with 3-4 interior firefighters dilly-dallying around with fire intensifying above and all around and have to stop and remove helmets to put hoods mask and regulator in service. No water keeping the fire in check from towers? Don't try to tell me they were hose streams operating inside. I did briefly see a couple squirts upward through the burned through open rough but should have removed them from the interior and hit the large body of fire with ladder pipes and tower to knock it down. Tactics on this fire seemed slightly off or odd?

God forbid they throw WATER on it.

All what the firefighters on the ladders are doing: They are watching the flames.

I’ve been watching these types of vids from the NYFD for a coupe fo weeks now. My respect for these people has grown exponentially! What a tough job they have when they’re in the thick of it. Maybe an expert on this stuff can answer this for me. Why do they wait so long to put water on some of these fires? It just seems like in those buckets just watching the fire burn? I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s because there are firefighters in there and they don’t want the water blasts to hit them or blow holes in the roof or walls which could expose them to fire. Is that right? Anyway, great job FDNY and all firefighters throughout the world. God speed!

For all the people saying negative things about the FDNY, I can't tell the following from just watching this so I will not slam them as many of you are. 1. are they inside trying to get people out. 2. are they inside trying to do an interior attack. 3. Do they have a water supply issue. Those are some good reasons why you don't want to just dump water on the top floors. I think these guys have done this before and you key board fire Chiefs should think before we take shoots at these guys.

Thank you, God bless you all and I hope the dogs have a happy ending XXXXX

9:35

And it’s another fire right now. Just 3 days after Christmas man!! 12 people died smfh

Did you film the one today?

Was hoping somebody got some footage! Great job by the FDNY and great footage!

Strange allowing the fire to gain control. Even a heavy fog on the roof fire would have done a lot to suppress it without danger to internal fire fighting efforts. Bad managment. Someone needs retraining.