Timmy Klein, a tall, childish firefighter, has only been on the job for 3 years in January 2019, but he has taken on a serious assignment. His teammate at Ladder 170 in Canarsie, Steven Pollard, died in the line of duty. Mr. Klein told his crew he wanted to write a eulogy.
Mr. Klein wrote again and again, he went to the firehouse on his days off to consult his lieutenant. Thrilled, on the day of Mr. Pollard’s funeral, Mr. Klein approached the altar, stepped over him, turned to the pulpit, and began to speak.
“I was with Steve the night he passed,” he said, choking as the crowd inside the sanctuary cried. “Steven Pollard died not thinking about himself, but trying to help others. We have lost a true hero.”
Three years later, on a bluebird spring day in Brooklyn, Mr. Klein took it upon himself to join that grim list. He was was killed on Sunday during a fiery ceiling collapse at a home in Canarsie. A 21-year-old man was also killed in the fire.
Mr. Klein is the 1,157th member of the Fire Department to die in the line of duty, and the fifth since March 170. His funeral will be Friday.
Lieutenant John Vaeth, who worked with Mr. Klein at Scale 170, said: “He was the best fit for everyone. “If something needs to be done and you know it has to be done, it’s Timmy.”
Dubbed the “golden child” or “Canarsie child,” Mr. Klein’s position at Scale 170 is the realization of a lifelong dream. The son of a Brooklyn firefighter, Klein grew up with the tradition of the department, surrounded by uncles and cousins who would eventually join the fire force.
“Timmy understands the risks. We all grew up in a family of firefighters,” said Keith Klein, a cousin and fellow New York City firefighter, who said as the ponytail was black and purple. hung on the facade of the Timmy Klein firehouse on Monday.
As far as possible luck in fighting the fire, Mr. Klein seems to have got it. For apprentice firefighters, actual fires — or “jobs,” in the department’s parlance — can be elusive. But Mr. Klein quickly became known as a “dark cloud”; The flames seemed to follow him, whenever he worked. He grew up to be a skilled and talented firefighter.
“He was very good at putting out fires,” said Lt. Bob Kittelberger, who served as Klein’s lieutenant at Level 170 during his six-year career.
Firefighters and bosses remember Mr. Klein drilling continuously, tackling jobs as big as topping off the roofs of burning houses and as small as cleaning masks at a firehouse. In the notoriously rough and messy world of the firefighter, his colleagues teased him with exaggerated reverential compliments: “You’re so perfect.”
“We will commend him. That’s our way to catch him,” said James Kennedy, a firefighter at Ladder 170.
On his days off, Mr. Klein volunteers with “Fight for Firefighters,” a nonprofit dedicated to renovating first responders’ homes to make it more accessible to people with disabilities. . A week before he was killed, Klein helped install a wheelchair lift at the home of a retired Staten Island firefighter, said Lieutenant Vaeth, who helped run the organization.
In the days since his death, Kennedy said, Klein’s absence was felt as colleagues discovered holes they never realized he filled. Every summer, Mr. Klein, who is unmarried, and colleagues take a vacation to the North Carolina State Bank, bonding with their children. Every week, they learned, Mr. Klein called the widow of a retired Ladder 170 firefighter to check in. Every morning before his shift was over, Mr. Klein would stop at a bakery to bring his crew breakfast – and eat pastries at his grandmother’s house. on the road.
The chaos of funeral planning ruthlessly underscored the absence.
“I find myself picking up my phone, and who are you going to call? You always call Timmy. Right now we’re finding out how much he’s actually done, because it’s just unfinished,” said Mr. Kennedy. “Why isn’t it done? Well, Timmy used to do this. ”
With six years of work. Mr. Klein has begun toying with taking the lieutenant exam. Mr. Kennedy said he recently bought a home near his parents in Rockaway and is in a serious relationship that colleagues suspect is leading to marriage.
On Sunday, Mr. Klein was briefed with details to the firehouse’s adjoining engine company, Engine 257, when a call came in from Canarsie. Engine 257 arrived within minutes, and Mr. Klein entered the house with four colleagues. The department said the condition was “deteriorating rapidly,” and not long after the third alarm, a commander ordered Mr. Klein and his colleagues to get out.
At the same time, the house partially collapsed. Firefighters managed to get out of the windows, and others tried to find a way out using the structure itself. Mr. Klein, trapped under the falling ceiling, was seriously injured; Eight other firefighters were injured, but all are expected to survive.
In the days since Mr. Klein’s death, a specific memory has haunted Lieutenant Kittelberger.
Less tearful, Lieutenant Kittelberger recounted the house fire to the Ladder 170 crew, where Mr. Klein was tasked with an outside ventilation position, responsible for managing air flow into the home by creating slits. openings in windows and walls.
Leading the rest of the crew inside, Lieutenant Kittelberger quickly realized that the fire was not on the main floor of the house, as expected, but rising through the basement and quickly climbing up the stairs. He realized that the house had bars blocking the windows, putting Lieutenant Kittelberger and his crew in a dangerous position. Fearing they would be trapped, he radioed outside, frantically ordering someone to remove the window bars in case the crew needed to escape.
After the fire was brought under control, Lieutenant Kittleberger inspected the scene outside and realized that Mr. Klein had made sure his colleagues always had a way out.
“There isn’t a single window bar left,” he said.
