Less than two weeks before the blaze at the former Deutsche Bank building killed two firefighters, a safety officer with the FDNY approved an inspection report that allowed workers to use blowtorches on the site, according to documents obtained by The Post.
The document was not included in the 176-page report released by the Fire Department yesterday covering the Aug. 18, 2007, fire.
The disaster, which killed firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino, also exposed bureaucratic incompetence at several government agencies and sparked a criminal probe by the Manhattan district attorney.
“We have to acknowledge that [inspections] were not done,” Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.
Unmentioned, however, was the FDNY “inspection report,” dated Aug. 6, that authorized a permit for the mob-linked subcontractor, John Galt Corp., to use and store flammable oxygen and acetylene torches at the Ground Zero demolition site.
“Did the inspector visit the site?” asked a source who reviewed the permit. “Why was this granted?”
Numerous fire-safety violations were revealed in the inferno’s aftermath, most notably the removal of a standpipe that left firefighters without water.
FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said the torch permit was for the upper floors of the tower at 130 Liberty St. – not the lower floors, where the firefighters were killed. They had been trapped in a maze of blocked stairwells by protective sheeting that had been installed to seal in asbestos and toxic dust left by the 9/11 attacks.
Still, the FDNY castigated itself in its report for not better handling the fire, which was started by careless smoking.
“It was very, very important that the building had not been inspected, and we will deal with that,” Scoppetta said.
Among the report’s findings:
* It took 13 minutes for workers to call 911 after seeing the fire.
* A lack of “radio discipline” by firefighters meant that some of the 14 “maydays” and 30 “distress” calls were missed in the frenzied communications.
* Sixty-seven minutes elapsed before firefighters had access to water.
* Beddia, 53, still had several minutes of air left in his tank.
Perhaps most dramatic, the report details the last time Graffagnino, 33, was seen alive. A firefighter with Engine 24, the same unit as the doomed firefighters, saw the two men.
Graffagnino was gasping for air with his face mask off when the unnamed firefighter tried to lead him out of the blackened, smoke-filled corridor.
But “he lost his grasp and fell toward the door leading out of the stairway,” according to the report.
“Firefighter Joseph Graffagnino fell back toward the stairs. The Engine Company 24 backup firefighter called for [Graffagnino] and [Beddia] to follow him. He shouted to them that he knew the way out.”
The firefighter then radioed a mayday call.
“There were two members on the 14th floor, out of air . . . at the stairwell.”
By the time Graffagnino and Beddia were recovered, it was too late.
Scoppetta said the Buildings Department must explain why it issued alteration permits, which enable contractors to remodel, rather than demolition permits. “By issuing alteration permits, the department limited deconstruction to certain floors at the time, in order to ensure that the demolition work did not proceed before the necessary abatement work was completed,” the department said in a statement.
cbennett@nypost.com