Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser Jr. demanded yesterday that his department reopen the inquiry into a West Roxbury restaurant blaze in August and hire medical specialists to scrutinize the autopsy results and toxicology tests from the two firefighters who died trying to fight it.
Fraser's order was issued hours after the city made public what was supposed to be the final word on the blaze that took the lives of Firefighters Warren J. Payne and Paul J. Cahill, whose autopsy results later indicated they were drug- and alcohol-impaired the night of the fire.
Speaking at a press conference at Fire Department headquarters, the commissioner said the study was incomplete because investigators never considered whether the deaths were connected to substance abuse.
Fraser, who appointed the board of inquiry, wants the board to obtain the autopsies and toxicology reports for Payne and Cahill, who died Aug. 29 in an inferno after a kitchen grease fire exploded into a 2,000-degree fireball inside the Tai Ho Mandarin and Cantonese restaurant.
Last October, two government officials with direct knowledge of the findings told the Globe that the autopsies indicated that Payne had traces of cocaine in his system and that Cahill's blood-alcohol content was 0.27, three times the legal limit to drive in Massachusetts.
"I think if you have been drinking heavily before you go to work, that you are impaired," Fraser said during one of three press conferences held by fire officials yesterday. "Whether you show up and can do certain tasks, your judgment is affected, your mobility has been affected."
The board's seven members, all union firefighters, concluded in their 134-page report that Payne and Cahill were not impaired, based on interviews with their commanding officers and other firefighters at the scene, a conclusion that Fraser said cannot be reached without examining medical evidence.
"I do not believe the board of inquiry can fully address this issue without first using the official autopsy and toxicology reports and then discussing the reports with a trained medical expert," Fraser told reporters. "Then we can make a final determination."
Prior to Fraser's press conference, Deputy Chief Stephen K. Dunbar, who chaired the board of inquiry, told reporters that he did not believe the medical evidence was needed, because firefighters interviewed said the two men handled every task assigned to them competently.
Dunbar said he would not expect the medical evidence to change the board's conclusion. "The facts show they performed their duties as assigned them," he said. "[Fraser] doesn't agree but we are trying to keep our independence."
In an extraordinary day of conflict filled with three press conferences called by the board, the commissioner, and the firefighters union, Edward Kelly, president of Boston Firefighters Local 718, took to a podium and leveled charges of his own.
In endorsing the board's findings, Kelly said that Fraser and his boss, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, are playing politics with the deaths of the two firefighters. The union and City Hall are negotiating a new contract.
"The commissioner just doesn't want to accept any responsibility," said Kelly. "He wants to shift the responsibility to two firefighters who lost their lives. We think that's a disgrace."
Fraser also came under fire from Dunbar.
"He may mean well," Dunbar said of Fraser, who handled firefighting in the US Navy but has never worked as a municipal firefighter. "But sometimes when you are new to the business, sometimes you don't understand how difficult it is to do . . . fire work."
Dunbar and other board members said at the press conference that Cahill died when a massive plume of carbon monoxide enveloped him as he fought the fire inside the restaurant's kitchen. Cahill was not wearing his facepiece, they said, because he had exhausted his oxygen supply.
Dunbar could not be reached last night for comment on Fraser's order to reopen the inquiry.
Payne was killed by a massive fireball created when pent-up flammable gases found an ignition source and detonated, engulfing him in flames that incinerated him in seconds.
When Dunbar was pressed by reporters why his board did not review the medical evidence, he said he had relied on existing protocol and requested the reports Oct. 5 through Boston police Detective Lieutenant Arthur Torigian, but never followed up when they did not arrive.
A police spokesman said yesterday that it was up to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office to release the reports.
Conley spokesman Jake Wark said the board never asked for the data in writing, which he said also could have been obtained from the state medical examiner's office.
Menino said in a phone interview yesterday that Conley pledged to release the medical evidence once his office completes what he called a criminal investigation into the fatal fire.
Prosecutors are conducting a death investigation, according to Wark, and have not concluded whether criminal charges should be brought against anyone.
In the absence of a review of the medical reports, Menino said, he is uncertain how reliable the board's conclusions are.
"They are coming to conclusions," Menino said. "I do not have any information about how they came to that conclusion."
Fire officials said at the press conference that the grease buildup in the ventilation system above the ceiling of the restaurant kitchen was so extensive that workers had covered a stove with foil to catch falling grease and installed a pan to collect dripping grease in another part of the kitchen.
Fueled by the built-up grease, the fire had been burning a long time before firefighters arrived, they said, allowing time for a pocket of explosive gas to build up.
"We don't go into exploding buildings," said Kelly. "We go into burning buildings. And this building exploded on us."
