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 Massive blaze in SW Houston kills 4 firefighters 
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Post Massive blaze in SW Houston kills 4 firefighters
13 others are injured
By James Pinkerton, Dale Lezon, Mike Tolson | May 31, 2013 | Updated: June 1, 2013 1:55am

What started as a small restaurant fire - a bit of business faced daily by firefighters everywhere - turned into a motel- engulfing inferno that claimed the lives of four responders from the Houston Fire Department when part of the building collapsed on them Friday. It was the department's worst loss of life ever.

"We arrived on the scene and about 14 minutes after our arrival we had a mayday," HFD Chief Terry Garrison said.

In an instant or close to it, a group of firefighters who had put themselves in deliberate jeopardy out of concern that people might be trapped inside the Southwest Inn were buried in burning debris. The precise series of events is at the heart of an investigation to be led by ATF specialists, who arrived at the scene later in the day. But the gist of it was clear in seconds.

"We had an early and quick catastrophic failure of the roof," Garrison said. "There's no way that I would have anticipated that we would lose four firefighters. I want to tell the residents of Houston their firefighters acted absolutely courageously today, that there was probably a dozen acts of heroism on that scene."

Across the city people were shocked by news of the loss. In addition to the dead, 13 other firefighters were taken to local hospitals with injuries. One was in critical condition.

"There is nothing that will heal the hurt we all feel," said a shaken Mayor Annise Parker.

All from two stations

Friday's fire was the latest horrific incident in what has become a spring of mayhem - from the Boston Marathon bombing to the fertilizer plant explosion in Central Texas to the devastating tornados in Oklahoma. Only once before have as many as three Houston firefighters been killed in one day, in a fluke accident in 1929 when a fire engine was hit by a train.

Friday's dead were from stations 68 and 51 and included a 12-year-veteran and a recent graduate from the fire academy. They left behind spouses, children and parents, all to wonder how so many could have been taken so quickly.

Those killed fighting the fire were:

Capt. EMT Matthew Renaud, 35, of Station 51.

Engineer Operator EMT Robert Bebee, 41, of Station 51.

Firefighter EMT Robert Garner, 29, of Station 68.

Probationary Firefighter Anne Sullivan, 24, of Station 68.


Garrison, stunned, vowed that something would come from his department's darkest hour besides grief and tears.

"We will improve," the chief said. "We will get better. We will learn from this, and we will keep on keepin' on."

The fire was reported at 12:09 as the lunch crowd was sitting down at Bhojan Restaurant, a vegetarian Indian cafe attached to the hotel. The front desk clerk at Southwest Inn, Martha Lopez, said a restaurant employee ran into the hotel saying that a fire had started. The two began knocking on doors and windows, telling guests to get out of the hotel, which can accommodate 100 guests and had 45 registered at the time of the fire.

Sammy Sewell, 29, had been staying at the hotel for six months. He said he stepped out of his room and heard yelling. He turned a corner, saw three women screaming and running toward him down a hallway, and then heard three blasts.

"Next thing you know, it was 'boom!' It scared the crap out of me," Sewell said. "I mean, it sounded like a cannon going off. That's how loud it was. I could have sworn it picked this building up and put it back down."

It was unclear what sparked the blaze. An ATF task force will lead in the investigation.

snip

Read more here: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Massive-blaze-in-SW-Houston-kills-4-firefighters-4566085.php?cmpid=hpfsln

Local news is reporting this morning that one of the injured firefighters lost his leg over night.

:candle

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Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:20 am
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