News

In memoriam: No answers yet as firefighters honored

Laurel J. Sweet

03/23/2015

March 23--Three comprehensive probes into the March 26, 2014, nine-alarm inferno at 298 Beacon St. that claimed Boston Fire Lt. Edward J. Walsh Jr. and firefighter Michael R. Kennedy remain open, with no conclusions in sight.

The Boston Fire Department honored the fallen firefighters yesterday, unveiling a memorial plaque at the Engine 33, Ladder 15 firehouse in the Back Bay, where Walsh, 43, a married father of three, and Kennedy, 33, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War, made their final run to the wind-fueled conflagration in an occupied brownstone. The department has no public remembrance planned on Thursday's one-year anniversary, hoping to give their families privacy.

"It's one of those days that you just won't forget," said Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who was only three months in office when the tragedy hit. "Every time I swear in a young firefighter or police officer or EMS, particularly since this event, I think about, 'What's their future going to be? Are they going to retire off this job?' And I hope they do."

City authorities preliminarily blamed the deadly blaze on sparks from unpermitted welding work behind an abutting building that strong winds off the Charles River carried into the clapboards.

Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Finn said yesterday results are still pending from independent probes conducted by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office, the department's own Board of Inquiry, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Finn said he's "in discussions with" the institute.

"It's probably going to be early summer before they release their report. The Board of Inquiry I've intentionally stayed away from to let them do their work. I think that's going to be forthcoming very shortly."

Conley's spokesman Jake Wark told the Herald, "The fact-finding portion of our investigation is largely complete and the legal analysis, in which prosecutors are applying statutory and case law to those facts, is under way. We'll announce any charging decision once that process is complete."

Richard Paris, president of Boston Fire Fighters Local 718, said, "Investigations take a long time ... I want it done thoroughly, too. My job as a union president is to make sure their families are taken care of."