Firefighters who survived the ordeal will never forget it.
Vince Capizzi, 32 at the time, remembers climbing 20 flights of stairs to reach the fire because emergency power systems had failed, leaving firefighters without elevators.
Capizzi attached his hose to standpipes that should have provided a torrent of water to begin fighting the fire, and moved toward the blaze.
"It was dark. There were flames and heavy smoke everywhere and intense heat, maybe 1,000 degrees," Capizzi said.
When he opened the nozzle on his hose, Capizzi said, water "squirted like a garden hose. It was wetting the floor, that's about it."
The standpipes' valves had been improperly set, making them worthless for fighting the blaze, a critical failure that left firefighters lugging hoses up 20 flights from the street while the fire grew to 12 alarms and moved through upper floors of the building.
Firefighter Glenn Johnson was on the ground and remembers that windows began shattering hundreds of feet above and "the glass was coming down, and cutting the hoses."
The severed hoses were replaced and covered with plywood, but that only further delayed firefighting efforts.
Meanwhile, another problem had to be addressed. The stair towers, which provided the only access to fight the fire, were filling with smoke and someone had to climb them to open their rooftop doors for ventilation.
Firefighters Holcombe, McAllister and Chappell ascended the stairs with air packs designed to give them 30 to 45 minutes of breathing in a smoke-filled environment.
But they never made it to the top. Holcombe radioed commanders and said that the trio was in trouble, on the 30th floor and running out of air.
