City officials in Rochester are calling for an investigation into a fatal 2012 fire after a fire department video was recently released.
Firefighters were called to a trash fire on Feb. 18 and then discovered a fire in burning inside the Grape Street home which ended up having children trapped upstairs above the flames.
“I am very concerned by what I saw in this video,” City Council President Miguel Melendez wrote in a letter to Mayor Malik Evans, according to RochesterFirst.com. “I wholly understand that this video is approximately 11 years old and from three administrations ago, however, I do want to understand how this incident was reviewed internally and if this investigation led to any findings or outcomes.”
Neither Melendez, or Evans were in office at the time of the fire, which ultimately claimed four children.
Councilmember Willie Lightfoot, who was a firefighter on the department at the time, called for an investigation into what occurred.
Lightfoot and Melendez wrote in a statement that the video needs to start a “conversation on what was done, and possibly not done, during that fateful event.”
The video was released to the TV station after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed, and records also included fire and police reports, as well as incident audio.
Bobbie Kugler, the mother of the four children killed in the fire, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, assault and arson after admitting to lighting a photo on fire to burn incense before going to bed. She was released from prison after five years.
Killed in the fire were Gage Reavy, 14, Greg Kugler, 13, Kandee Kugler, 12, and Kaiden Kugler, 6.
Firefighters were called to burning clothes on the street after a dispute when they saw flames inside the home a few doors down.
A firefighter began filming the incident, which showed firefighters forcing entry to the home and then returning for more equipment as a hoseline as someone shouted that people were upstairs in the home, which the video showed children in the window.
Water to the nozzle was delayed, according to the video.
Crews threw a ground ladder to the second floor while interior crews ended up in the wrong unit of the structure while searching for the children.
As flames engulfed the home, crews were ordered out of the structure.
“It’s a tragedy, there were probably things that could have been done differently,” fire service consultant Bob O’Brien told the television station. “What those are, it’s 11 years later and we would need much more information and we’d really need to speak to people who were there.
“Hopefully the people who were there have passed along their knowledge to young firefighters,” O'Brien added. “Are mistakes made? Yes. It’s important to learn from them."
The city's fire chief, Stefano Napolitano, took office last month and is working with city officials to determine what happened that night.
