
FDNY remembers ‘Black Sunday’ tragedies

CITYWIDE – FIREFIGHTERS AND FDNY staff on Thursday commemorated the 20th anniversary of “Black Sunday,” marking the date of Jan. 23, 2005, when four firefighters suffered deadly injuries while fighting fires in the Bronx and Brooklyn.
On that day, six firefighters were forced to jump from a fourth-story window while battling a blaze at an illegally converted building in the Bronx, leading to the immediate deaths of Lt. Curtis Meyran and Lt. John Bellew and causing severe injuries to the other four; a third firefighter, Lt. Joseph DiBernardo, died in 2011 of injuries he sustained during that fire while helping another member of his crew climb to safety.
Separately in Brooklyn, on the same day, Firefighter Richard T. Sclafani was killed while searching for trapped occupants at a two-alarm house fire in East New York.
The department held a memorial ceremony on Thursday morning at the Quarters of Engine Company 46 & Ladder Company in the Bronx, presided over by FDNY commissioner Robert S. Tucker.
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