The firefighter who died fighting a Bushwick warehouse inferno yesterday was a 9/11 responder who leaves behind a wife and two children. Lt. Richard Nappi, a 17-year veteran of the department, is survived by his wife Mary Anne, his 12-year-old daughter, Catherine and his 11-year-old son, Nicholas. Mayor Bloomberg did his best to offer his condolences to Nappi's family last night, and told reporters, "It's very tragic. There's nothing we can ever say. They were in love, lived together, had kids. All of a sudden, he's gone."
Nappi, who grew up in the Bronx and lived with his family on Long Island, succumbed to overwhelming heat and suffered a "cardiac event" while fighting the blaze, which landed five of his FDNY brothers in the hospital. (Four had minor injuries, and the fifth was listed in serious but stable condition.) Nappi was wearing his full "bunker gear," and FDNY Chief Medical Officer Kerry Kelly explains, "When the firefighters are wearing bunker gear, they're encapsulated. It's very warm. When you add the ambient temperature being so hot, it adds to the burden on an individual."
More than 150 firefighters struggled for three hours to contain the blaze, which may have been started after a pile of cardboard boxes caught fire on the second floor of the two-story warehouse, located on Flushing Avenue. The warehouse was packed with boxes stacked 20 feet high, and firefighters faced significant challenges moving through the space to extinguish the fire. The building super says some 30,000 square feet went up in smoke, and firefighters had to cut through the roof to get at parts of the warehouse.
Nappi was also a volunteer at the Farmingville, Long Island fire department. "I'm beside myself," Philip Caron, a fellow volunteer, tells Firehouse. "He was a guy that would give you the shirt off his back. He was a fireman all the way. He was a volunteer in his private time and he worked for the city fire department. He ate, slept and drank fire department." And Nappi's mother tells the Daily News, "He was so wonderful, always happy, always good. I really got lucky to be his mother."
