Much Respect To Elmsford FD And Others With This Past Weekend's Tragedy

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I just wanted to give Elmsford FD and the other agencies involved much props in they handled this weekend's tragic fatal structure fire.

Click Here To Read The Incident Alert

It was a very difficult fire, to say the least. Units arrived almost immediately, and the attic was engulfed as was most of the second story upon arrival. Lines were stretched, and aggressive primary searches were conducted, with firefighters even trying to dig through some of the debris from the collapsing attic which they could not reach due to the fire. The Incident Commander has to make the difficult choice to remove the firefighters from the building, in which the structural integrity was quickly disintegrating. The child who was found in the attic bedroom several hours later (12:30PM the next day), and stood no chance, no matter what the firefighters did or when they did it. The firefighters who tried to locate the child are suffering tremendous emotional pain because of their heroics. There's obviously much more to the story, but that's just a quick synopsis.

To the Incident Commanders, I can only imagine how tough your choices that you had to make must have been.

Daisy, WCPD's Detective John Peter's Arson Dog, was also on scene assisting C&O trying to determine the cause, which I didn't see posted in the media.

I was also told that Nicky Melillo was on scene with Valhalla VAC. As many of you know, his brother, Chucky Mellilo, died almost 1 year ago near the date of the fire. He was out there making his brother proud, and doing exactly what his brother would have done.

Thoughts and prayers are with all involved while they recover from this.

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Thank you to all FD, PDs and VACs that were there on that night. I know it was not an easy call and to all the neighborhood fire departments that went on standby in Elmsford thank you as well! And thoughts and prayers to the family.

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Thoughts and prayers are with all who responded and the family. GOD BLESS!