Daley Lets Joyce Off Hook in Loop Fire; Mayor Side-Steps Handling of the Blaze

Mayor Richard Daley on Monday issued a strong defense of Fire Commissioner James Joyce but repeatedly dodged when asked if the Fire Department’s response to the fatal blaze at 69 W. Washington St. was proper.

Meanwhile Joyce issued an apology to family members of the victims who he said may have misinterpreted remarks last week when he said he would not have done anything differently if he had the opportunity.

"If the families of those who died too my words...to mean I wouldn’t change the result of this tragic fire, I apologize," he said. ‘What I was trying to get across was that each fire is different. What doesn’t change is the method of attacking such a ferocious fire."

"We learn from every fire," Joyce added. "I said we would be smarter next time. By that I meant we learned the Fire Department must not rely solely on reports from phone calls and verbal reports that people need assistance," in order to launch searches.

Critics, including Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy, have called for the commissioner’s ouster. Of the six people who died of smoke inhalation in the fire, three worked in Murphy’s office.

‘An emotional time’

"It is an emotional time with people, and the less I say the better off you are," Daley said when asked about Murphy’s demand.

But Joyce still has his confidence, the mayor asserted.

"He is a very good fire commissioner," Daley told reporters at a news conference at the city’s emergency communications center on the West Side. "I know you want to hang him. You want someone fired. You like that. The Fire Department is in good hands--this commissioner and the deputies and each and every one of them are the firemen."

Sources close to Daley expressed confidence that Joyce’s job is safe based on what is known so far about the fire, and they said the mayor is inclined to dig in his heels when there are calls for a top aide’s ouster with no evidence of wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, when questions turned to the adequacy of the response to the fatal Oct. 17 blaze, Daley was evasive.

Asked about his personal assessment, he declared, "These men and women, fire and police, they serve and protect. They have to do with job. It is a very dangerous job at all times."

Was he satisfied the firefighters did all they could?

‘It is very hard to answer that because somebody has died," Daley said. "Both the commissioner and everyone else are reviewing every type of strategy to look at that. After any tragedy, always look at the fact and find out."

Asked yet again, Daley replied, "I have to look at the facts more carefully, like anything else."

Joyce said he could not explain why the six fire victims, who died in the building’s southeast stairwell, where smoke was heavy, were not found by firefighters until long after the blaze was reported.

Firefighters "came and went [in the stairwell] at different times," he said. "Their efforts were concentrated on fighting the fire and the immediate searches directly above the fire. They responded, too, to calls from people looking for help from various areas of the fire."

Use of cellular phones added to the complexity of the rescue effort, Joyce said.

"We learned about the difficulties of searching large-scale buildings, the issue of what is relatively new to some people in firefighting, which is ready assess of cell phones and the many, many messages that come from all directions," he said.

"People were calling from the suburbs, from inside the building, from outside the building with messages that were sometimes confused," Joyce said. "Those are things we [will] manage better the next time."

As separate state and county investigation get under way, the city’s own internal review of the Fire Department’s response continues, officials said.

Joyce said he still does not know whether responding firefighters realized that all doors to stairwells locked automatically behind people who evacuated their offices.

"The immediate attack team knew the door they were facing was locked, and the next rescue team that went to the other side of the building knew that the door was locked because they had to use forcible-entry tools," the commissioner said. "Whether they made that leap to figure out that the whole building may have been locked, I don’t kn ow at this time.:

Daley has said the city will consider a number of new safety measures, including the prohibition of stairwell doors that lock, after studying lessons of the tragedy.

Asked if his department might incorporate top-to-bottom stairwell searches as standard procedure in future high-rise fires, Joyce replied, "We will consider everything we learned that night."

Joyce said he has "the utmost confidence in the firefighters who were at the fire that night."

"You head their stories. But we are not afraid to make changes based upon our experiences that will improve our findings and search-and-rescue protocols."

Joyce cast doubt last week on the report of survivors who said they were told by a firefighter to retreat back up a smoky stairwell, without accompaniment. He softened his assessment on Monday.

"We haven’t found any firefighters who recall making any such statements in the heat of fighting the fire," he said. "I am not saying those statements were not made. I am not saying the person who said that was incorrect..."

Fire survivors Carol Melton and Jill Runk released a joint statement Monday reiterating their earlier comments about encountering firefighters.

"As we descended the southeast stairwell from the 19^th floor, several of us were stopped at the 12^th floor by a firefighter carrying an ax and instructed to ‘go back upstairs.’ We followed these instructions. Upon our escape from the stairwell, we immediately recounted these events to authorities."

The women also expressed their gratitude to other firefighters who later helped them evacuate the building after they had climbed back up the stairs, found and open door and descended down another stairwell.

Lawyers check building

On a related front, lawyers and their experts continued to examine the Washington Street Building Monday, and they told a judge they will need a week to complete their work except for the area on the 12^th floor, where the fire started, which will take longer.

One area of inquiry is a ventilation system that exists in a small vestibule between the hallway and the southeast stairwell, the lawyers said. The system appears to have been designed to funnel smoke out of the building, through a system of dampers with automatic sensors, they said.

Attorney Robert Clifford said they were still learning about the system and trying to understand whether it was functioning on the day of the fire.