At the same time that Brownsville Fire Department Chief Carlos Elizondo was rubbing elbows with the big shots in Matamoros in a mock chemical spill drill, two of his men were slightly injured and received medical treatment when a roof collapsed in a burning building Tuesday.
Firefighters responded to a house fire on Barcelona Avenue at 11:50 a.m., said Assistant Fire Chief Cesar Pedraza. Pedraza also said that four fire engines and a ladder truck responded.
The roof collapsed, injuring two firefighters and they were treated on scene for minor injuries, the news media reported.
News reports from Matamoros indicate that Elizondo and some Brownsville firefighters were on hand there to participate in a bi-national mock drill along with Matamoros mayor Leticia Salazar Vázquez and another 150 persons. The event was held at Mata's Olympic Park and included the director of the environmental committee of the Maquiladora Association. The event started at 8 a.m. and lasted well into the early afternoon and the mock drill staged a mock crash between a truck and a tanker trailer carrying hazardous chemicals (ammonia). The drill included four injured civilians who were treated by doctors. All the actors were students of the Matamoros medical school.
Of 13 border sister cities, only Brownsville and El Paso have a formal mutual agreement plan in place with the cities across the river, that is, Matamoros and Ciudad Juarez.
Unlike his predecessor Lenny Perez, Elizondo has taken to wear a natty formal suit and tie in public appearances. Perez usually wore his firefighter uniform to these events.
When Elizondo was president of the firefighters union, he often criticized Perez for putting the department's resources on the wrong priorities. He, among others, criticized Perez for sending neh firefighters and their truck from the Fire Station 6 on 1100 Old Port Isabel Rd. to Paredes Elementary School during Fire Prevention Week.
It just so happened that a fire broke out nearby on now-Jaime Zapata Road (Old Coffeeport Road). As a result of Lenny having sent the truck and firefighters to Vela, the firefighters from the Old Alice Station 4 at 605 Old Alice Road had to respond.
The fire occurred on Oct. 10 at the Macias Apartments at 3663 Coffeeport Road.
Eyewitnesses to the blaze have said that the response time by the firefighters was unusually long and that mismanagement of fire companies may have contributed to the tragic turn of events.
"I was there before the fire engines got there," said an eyewitness at the scene. "I saw smoke coming out of the window of an upstairs apartment and wondered why the firefighters were taking so long. There is fire station (6) just around the corner near the Treviño Funeral Home. It wouldn't have taken them but a minute to get there. It's less than a mile away."
A review of the preliminary report indicates that the crew of Fire Engine 6 did not answer the call because it had been assigned by Fire Department administrators on Perez's orders to make a Fire Prevention Week presentation at Paredes, miles away from the fire.
Instead, Fire Engine 4 on Old Alice Road across the street from Martin Elementary was assigned to cover for Fire Engine 6. In their report, they said they got the call to go to the blaze at 9:13 a.m. from dispatch that indicated that a child was trapped inside.
The report states that dispatch got the call from the scene at 9:12.
Fire Engine 4 reported that they covered the 7.5 miles from Old Alice to the apartments in about nine minutes, arriving there at 9:21 a.m.
The blaze resulted in the fire death of four-year-old Osvaldo "Gotti" Moreno who was rescued out of a burning apartment on the city’s northeast side, but died three days later from brain and lung damage caused by the fumes and smoke caused by the blaze.
We're fortunate that the two firefighters' injuries were minor. And we also acknowledge that firefighters of a high rank needed to be sent to participate with our neighbors in the mock disaster drill lest their egos be offended if we just send a couple of captains instead of our new nattily-dressed chief.
But just as Elizondo criticized Perez for his grandstanding during his administration, he should also be prepared to bear some of the same criticisms he heaped on Loony Lenny.